Bestseller Books On CD For Independent Reading

Hello there! I am a Literature teacher at a public high school in San Francisco. Our school has been teaching "at-risk" students in a successful learning environment for three years. I believe that it is important to teach students to know their hearts and use their minds well. We prepare them to live productive lives, to be socially useful, and to have personally satisfying lives with an academic program that stresses intellectual development and social involvement in our society. I have developed a strong curriculum that places great importance on learning how to learn, reason, question, and investigate. Each day in my Literature class, we have time for independent reading. This is a time when I tell my students, "It's okay to pick up and put down twenty books until you find one that you will really enjoy reading." I've learned that the secret is to provide enough choices for students and to know students well enough to help them find that one book that they will finish. I've witnessed my students take off and read book after book when provided with a protected space that is quiet and filled with reading. When this happens, the reading vibe in the room is so contagious that students influence each other to read and even reluctant readers become page-turners! Independent reading has the potential to give students a personalized path to explore literature and expression. If students are engaged in their reading and care about their books, their enthusiasm drives their work and pushes them further as readers. I am a certified English and Special Education teacher and have students at varying levels of reading readiness in the same classroom. Over time I have learned that some readers benefit from listening to the book on CD as they read along. This allows them to improve their decoding skills as well as concentrate on critical ideas beyond mere comprehension questions. As of now our classroom library does not allow for this opportunity. To complete this project and continue construction of our library, my two literature classes would like CD copies of the following books: "The Chronicles of Narnia" by CS Lewis "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown "Brokeback Mountain" by Annie Proulx "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho "Monster" by Walter Dean Myers "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey "The Maya Angelou Poetry Collection" "A Beautiful Mind" by John Nash "The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection" "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain "The Voice of the Poet: Langston Hughes" Every Literature classroom needs a library...thank you for helping make ours a reality!