On Reading Logs and Other Experiments in Teaching

This year, my high school students are getting credit for reading. Wait, you ask, isn't that what an English class always does? Well, yes. And no.

See, high school students are always being assigned things to read, being assessed on their comprehension of what they read, being made to slog through a book they might not have read on their own, and all of these are good things. I do not believe it is wrong to train a student in how to persevere, in how to be disciplined, in how to tackle something outside of his/her comfort zone; however, I believe we have been teaching these skills in the absence of those other, readerly skills we all know and use:

How to choose a book. How to enjoy a book. How to stretch yourself from one type of reading to a new genre or style. How to have an opinion. How to reflect. How to abandon a book that is not serving you well.

These are the marks of a mature reader, and unfortunately, school doesn't often teach these, so if a student is not a reader already, he or she will never learn how to be one. And though it may be naive, I believe every student is already more of a reader than he/she may think and every student can be a mature reader. Even students who "hate" to read.

In an effort to encourage, develop, celebrate, and stretch these skills, I have reduced the number of complete works we will read together to make room for them to read things they choose themselves. I've had them create a Google Sheets Reading Log where they must record all titles (books, audiobooks, stories, poetry collections, articles, blogposts, etc...) they read this year. They will set goals for themselves at the beginning of each quarter, and they will be assessed on how satisfactorily they meet those goals and the ones I've established for every student. I've required them to read diversely (not just all white men) and to read something from at least two countries of origin. I've asked them to read at least one item from a list of genres I provided and to use their goal-setting as a way to stretch themselves each quarter.

They get to pick. They are asked to rate what they pick. They are given the chance to DNF something and mark it in their log as such. They are, in short, doing what you and I do everyday.

It is an experiment. What if students fake it? How would I know? (in part, their weekly journals will do this, but it is still possible to fool me). What if students just don't do it? What if they still hate reading at the end of the year? (this last one is, of course, not just possible but likely in some cases).

But if just a handful of kids move from hating reading to seeing themselves as actively engaged readers, I will consider it a success. After all, what's more important: that they read every word of The Odyssey or that they appreciate words and writing in new and exciting ways?

I'm putting my money (and my grades) on the last one.

Or Something More Like a Stone Skipping Across the Surface of Water

The school year has begun, so my self-assigned goal to remain present in this space has also begun. Look for posts once a week. 

It is not an uncommon reality for a reader to hit a rut. It has been written about with greater frequency, skill, and grace than I care to approach here, but I want to focus for a moment on a particular kind of reading frustration, one that I think often gets ignored. Towards the end of the summer, I got to spend time with two of my favorite people, both bookish friends. Naturally, they asked what I'd been reading lately, and I blanked. I had to check my list. I could think of only one that stood out in an entire summer of reading, and that one I wanted to dismiss as not worthy of my continued attention upon it. The problem was (is?) that none of the books I had been reading were capturing me completely. When I review my list, I can say with confidence that the last 16 books I have read have been good. I didn't actively dislike any of them (though my review of I Kill the Mockingbird might have leaned that way), but neither was I changed by them. Being moved, changed, inspired by a book is part of my core, and there is definitely something wrong when that hasn't happened in months of reading.

The question is: What causes the rut? (Not that kind.)

Is it merely coincidence? The stars aligning to give me a strong dose of average before some excellence comes my way?

Is it the State of Books Today? Just no.

Or is it me? A mindset I am bringing to the reading or the selecting or both? Though coincidence does likely play a role, I'm putting my chips on this one. 

I think I've been selecting the wrong books for the wrong reasons and reading them in the wrong ways. That's a lot of wrong, and if it's true, I've been lucky to get so many averages out of it. Take note of the evidence:

Digital reading is not the best format for me to fully dig in to a book 

• the majority of my summer reads were digital

There's a difference between reading for my class and reading for myself

• half of the last 16 books have had some connection to school

 Being changed by a book requires you be fully invested in it

• a huge number of books I have read recently have been accidental or for random reasons

That seems to prove the onus is on me. But take heart, friends, I'm reading now a book that I bought after reading a NYT review of it. A book I wanted to read. A book I felt was important. Now, it won't likely be THE ONE. I've read David Grossman before, and it wasn't among my favorite books of all time, but still I am intrigued by this book and what it may demand of me. Because after all, a book is like any other relationship. If it doesn't demand anything of you, it's probably not offering much either.

I think it's about time I allowed my books to make some demands.