When I was in high school, I had the privilege of taking a class called Reading for Pleasure. I know, it sounds like a blow-off class, but it totally wasn't.
Yes, the students got to choose what they read, but there were requirements. We couldn't read a textbook (although if we were a senior we could read our senior paper novel), and we couldn't work on homework or sleep. We had to read. The last five minutes of class, we would write a "reading log" about what we read that day, and keep track of what pages we read. Yeah, we didn't talk a lot in that class, and we didn't really get to know our classmates, but it was hands-down one of my favorite classes in my entire high school career (I guess I would say it's tied with my creative writing classes).
The reading logs were one of my favorite parts of class. I started out not knowing really how to write them, and therefore didn't like them much initially, and I tended to do a sort of synopsis about the part of the book I had read that day. But as the semester went on I started to figure out my flow and I enjoyed writing them more. At the beginning of the semester, I would struggle to find things to write about for the greater part of the five minutes, but by the end of the year I was struggling to finish writing by the time the bell rang. One of my favorite things about the reading logs was that our teacher would write back to us, comment on our thoughts, and make little notes while she was grading them. I still have all of my reading logs with all of her notes in the margins. It made me feel like I was writing for more than a grade, like I was actually having a conversation with my teacher through these five-minute assignments every day.
At the beginning of every class period, the teacher would share about a book she had recently read or was currently reading. Throughout the semester, each student was required to do at least one "book share." This was a simple thing; we only had to talk for a couple of minutes and have maybe three slides on a Power Point presentation. This was good to see what other students were reading and parts that they thought were important. A lot of people were nervous about sharing, myself included, but that was one of two chances to actually hear from the other students in the class.
Also, at the end of the semester, we had this big two-day assignment called Booksellers Day. The class would sign up to "sell" on one day, with the class being basically split evenly between the two days. When you were "selling" your book, which was one you had read at some point that semester, you had to have at least three visual aids (not including the actual book), and the whole point was to talk to other students in the class about your book for the entire period. (Our teacher warned us when explaining the assignment to pick a book we liked enough to talk about for an hour!) The other half of the class, the "book buyers," would come around to your desk and ask you questions about the book you chose. This was a great way to have awesome conversations with people about a book you loved (and a great way to try to convince them to read it if they hadn't already).
I absolutely loved my teacher for this class. She was so passionate about teaching, and was so passionate about books and about each of us, there was no way you could feel unimportant in her class. She recently retired, and although I'm pretty sure the entire district was saddened, she definitely deserves a break. She worked so hard to make an impact in so many students' lives, and she definitely made an impact in mine. I actually took her class twice, once my sophomore year of high school and once my very last semester as a senior. I'll make another post more about her later.
Also, now that I've explained how the class actually functioned, I'm going to make a post about how the class is beneficial and why it should be included as an elective for all high schools (not to get all preachy about it or anything, ha!). Hopefully you'll check those out as well.
Love Always,
Kristin
No comments:
Post a Comment