Help me give my students the gift of book clubs! Students will be engaged in thoughtful discussion of the dystopian genre while employing and developing their reading skills!
"What new books do you have, Ms. H?" These are the best words for any reading teacher to hear: students who have fallen in love with reading! A veteran teacher, I've grown to love seeing students devour texts and witness the emotional turmoil when they can't wait to read the plot twist at the end of a good novel. The junior high serves both 7th and 8th grade, and this school's new eighth-grade reading curriculum aims to provide students with an engaging and personal reading experience, where they not only learn how to become better readers but also develop a life-long love of reading!
My students belong to a small public school in a big city, and although our numbers are small, their eagerness and enthusiasm for reading and learning is mighty.
My students are filled with imagination, creativity, and wonder. Even as developing young adults, they teach me daily about what it means to be compassionate. They approach their daily learning with enthusiasm and dedication and me, as their reading teacher, eagerly address their literacy needs, and attempt to locate books that motivate and challenge each student to apply reading strategies to books they love.
My Project
YEEEESSSS! .... that feeling when you find an awesome resource that will resonate with and academically challenge your students... This year, several teacher resources have encouraged me to start reading workshop (RW). What is it? I teach mini-lessons about genre, reading strategies, and more to the whole class; then, small student book groups (clubs) practice skills with their chosen texts. While groups read/talk, I'm able to conference with them, refining or extending their learning. It's seriously better than icing on a cake--it's the whole cake. Reading workshop changed the culture of my classroom with enthusiastic, thoughtful readers!!
NOOOOOOOO: WE NEED DYSTOPIAN BOOKS; unfortunately, my amazing resources only include instructions for HOW the teacher-- that's me--should instruct, not the WHAT--as in, I have no books for students to apply my instruction!
Is this a plotline for a bad YA dystopian novel? No, unfortunately. It's real life, and it's happening in my classroom.
This dystopian reading workshop unit is what my students and I look forward to. So far, we've managed to get creative to obtain titles we need: my purchases for classroom library, public and school library books, and even titles lurking on Goodwill shelves.
HERE'S THE HITCH: I nearly no dystopian literature. And, to run effective RW, we need multiple copies of various titles.
Why Dystopian literature?
- It's ridiculously popular. reading interest = motivation and engagement
-It educates and warns humanity about the dangers of social and political structures (sometimes satirical).
- It requires a greater suspension of disbelief (hello, imagination!).
Dystopian novels hook teens to engage in the genre, and my instruction guides their deep understanding of skills to consider author’s craft and purpose. Please help me foster a community of thoughtful readers—the next thoughtful generation to use literature to be inquisitive about the how/why of our world.
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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 Mrs. Lynch and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
