My students need high-interest fiction to read for pleasure. Last year was my first year teaching middle school since 1990, and my classroom library is very small right now.
My students are bright and love to read and learn! Many of the students come from lower income homes and do not have the resources to purchase novels to use at home.
I love the energy in the room when they get excited about what we are reading or discussing.
For the first time in some of their lives, they like Language Arts class! I want to keep the momentum going all year.
Our school is one of the top performing schools in the district. 68% of 8th graders passed the state assessment in reading last year, over 15% higher than the state average.
My Project
"The books we read as middle schoolers change the course of our identity" according to the We Are Teachers website. Last year I taught two of the books on their "Best Books for Middle Schoolers" list: The Outsiders and The Giver.
My students fell in love with the characters and learned empathy, perseverance, and pride when reading about Jonas' struggle for identity in The Giver and Ponyboy's loss and ultimate acceptance of his best friend's death in The Outsiders.
I would love to have the other books on the list available for students to check out of my classroom library. Some of my students read a new book every couple of days. One student checked out a new book every day she could. I was amazed and proud of how so many of them still love reading for pleasure. I very much want to encourage this in all of my 7th graders.
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