My students need 5 copies each of 10 different books, including Soldier Boys, Peak, and The Enemy, so that we can conduct a monthly book club for the duration of the school year.
Many of the boys in my middle school struggle with reading. At the same time, these same male students are curious, opinionated, and social. They need exposure to some high interest books and a chance talk about them.
My students attend a small middle school in rural Maine.
Thanks to our small size, kids often develop close ties with the dedicated faculty members of our school community. We get to know our students' academic and emotional needs very well.
It is hard not to notice that way too many of our male students are in trouble when it comes to their reading and writing skills. As in middle schools throughout the rest of the United States, our boys, in general, perform far below their female counterpoints on standardized tests for literacy skills. (Our male and female students are about even when it comes to standardized tests for math.) One of the biggest reasons for this is that many of these male students do not have a reading routine in their lives. They rarely read for pleasure and often view reading as uncool or even "girly." Reading is a skill, though, and in order to improve one's reading, it's essential to read both during and after school hours.
My Project
The faculty members of my school are concerned about the gender-gap issue of reading in our school. We have decided to recruit a group of our most reluctant 8th grade male readers and bring them together in an all-boys book club. Each month, our boys, along with three faculty members and our school's principal, will read an engaging and highly-readable book club selection. Twice a month, we will come together in our school's conference room and discuss the books over lunch. Not only will our boys be matched with some of the most popular, exciting new books of the year, but they will also be helped through the process of reading these books by the other students and faculty members of the group. Furthermore, our book club meetings will be a chance for our male students to begin talking about their reading in a low-stakes yet highly-supportive atmosphere.
My students need 5 copies each of 10 different books, including Soldier Boys, Peak, and The Enemy, so that we can conduct a monthly book club for the duration of the school year.
A boys' book club will give our school the chance to begin combating the gender gap that we see between our male and female readers.
We're a small school in which good ideas catch on quickly. If we can help our neediest students experience the thrill of reading truly good books and the satisfaction of being able to thoughtfully talk out their ideas about books with their peers, we can begin to spread the word that boys are readers and reading matters.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Swenson and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
