The cost of forty-four books, including Tuesdays with Morrie, Twilight, and The Fellowship of the Ring is $517, including shipping and <a target="new" href="http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm" onclick="g_openWindow('http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm', 300, 800, 'fulfillwindow');return false;">fulfillment</a>.
My careers-based school, which serves juniors and seniors, has a goal that all students will read at least ten books in their English courses and fifteen more in their other classes. My district requires that I teach one mandatory novel in each course. As with any title that comes from a list, not all of these books foster a life-long love of literature. Therefore, I want the other nine titles the students read to be ones they'll love.
To help my students reach this goal, I offer self-selected reading (SSR). During almost every class period, I have a time when students get to read whatever book they'd like. They are not limited by my preferences, district lists, or canons. To help find books they'll enjoy, I purchase student-recommended books in my classroom library. Because my school has no library (!), the only books my students have available are the ones in my room. Every year, I purchase new books for the classroom. Every year, there are books that are "stolen." That is, students check them out and love them so much they don't want to return them, or they love them so much they are passed around to their friends and family but they don't make the trek back to my room. While I realize that's a great problem to have, the "good books" in my room quickly disappear. By the second semester, I have students asking "Where have the good books gone?" To help alleviate this problem, I'd like another copy of the books that are frequently "stolen" from my class. I teach one hundred students who would love to get see more books in my room.
I've offered SSR in my classes for eleven years now, and it is the most successful activity I offer. When former students bump into me at the mall or in restaurants, the one activity they consistently say they say helped them was self-selected reading. These students will recall what they read in my class, and then, they'll begin telling me what they're reading now. Several students have told me that they are readers today because they were offered SSR.
More than three‑quarters of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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