My students need 24 various high interest novels including the Divergent, Harry Potter, and Hunger Game series to improve literacy, vocabulary, and reading endurance.
Today during independent reading time, my students were surprised to notice that they struggled to put down their novels.
My students are inspiring, kind, and friendly freshmen.
Since they scored low on tests, they are required to take a regular English class like other freshman along with a support class called reading. The reading class is a separate class that is meant to strengthen the skills they need to be successful in the English class.
The school has over four thousand students and houses the whole district. Because of this, the school is very diverse. The achievement gap is loud and clear yet, the school has been trying many avenues to alleviate this problem.
My Project
My students need a variety of newer, high interest novels including Divergent, Harry Potter, and the Hunger Game series, to read during independent reading time on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Most of my students only read when they are absolutely forced to by an adult. This is the only time when they have ownership in what they read and they take pride in showing/talking about their learning because it started with them rather than an adult.
Students will choose a novel and be held accountable for reading it by updating the class blog every Friday. As they read, students are to respond to "close reading" questions on the blog and comment on classmates' blog entries to encourage each other and be in dialogue with one another about reading. Questions can be about the elements of a novel, figurative language, conflict, and/or the writer's craft.
A classroom library with current, interesting books will help my students see that reading does not have to be a chore, that reading options are limitless, and that reading is cool because it creates a sense of awareness that you don't get with anything else.
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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. Odisho and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
