I teach sophomores and juniors at a rural, high-poverty high school near a declining farming community in Ohio.
My students say that they can't stand to read, but when presented with books that they can relate to and offer interesting plot lines and characters, they blossom as readers. My students insisted two weeks ago that they don't read. Never have and never will. But suddenly, when reading the books from our classroom collection, they are reading successfully and are even enjoying it! Here's the problem. I brought my books with me from the last school I taught. I only had between 30 and 50 students there. Now I have three times the readers but with books only adequate for 50.
The other issue my students have begun to deal with is openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual people in the student body. It is quite exciting that these students are able to live openly here at school, but many of my students don't know how to deal with peers that are so "different." I need for them to understand how people who identify as LGBT are no different than their straight friends, and I need them to realize the affect that "that's so gay" has on their peers.
Reading can help! I need books! Lots of them for my students. And I need books with diverse characters so that my students can see the larger world around them. A world that they are part of even if they never leave their small farming community. These books will open their eyes to what the world offers and offer them an escape from the drama and tragedies that befall them daily here in high school. (Surely we all remember what that was like!)
You can help my students appreciate diversity and continue to fall in love with reading by providing them with books that will reach out them them where they are. You can help them become life-long learners and engage with the world through critical thinking that is gained by reading.
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