Create a Reader, Follow an Author!

Kids need great authors to help them become great readers! This is my fifth year teaching 8th grade language arts. I have a very diverse population of students, many who don’t have easy access to books outside of my classroom or the school library. My school strongly supports reading, but as a classroom teacher I know the more classroom library books I can provide, the more prepared I can be to help students access the books they want and need.

I see a variety of students walk through my doors, many who only grudgingly pick up a book. I help those same students find a book they like, written by an author who has many published books… and those kids are off and running, ready to read anything they can get their hands on by that same author. It’s those same kids who need that immediate access to such books in my classroom library. They’ll be more motivated to take that initial plunge if I can put a book in their hands, rather than send them to the library to find it on their own.

I would love to be able to offer students various author selections right from my classroom library shelves. Kids like current teen literature; the girls have fallen for vampire love stories, the boys love anything to do with sports and action. So many authors write in these genres and I want to be able to share such a collection with my students. Creating author sets of books by Stephenie Meyer, JK Rowling, James Patterson, Mike Lupica, and other authors will help turn some of those reluctant readers into avid readers… once they find one author they like and read their books, then that love (or at least like!) for reading will flow into other book choices. 150 students walk through my classroom doors every day, all of these students have access to my classroom library. This project will create an excitement for reading and a desire to search out more books.

Your help will make it possible for students to discover the joy of reading, to discover a favorite author, to discover the power of the written word. Imagine the buzz of a classroom when a box full of new books, current literature that kids are just itching to get their hands on, arrives. That’s what my classroom should sound like; your help will make that happen.