Up Against the Wall!
Encouraging Reading, Promoting Young Adult Literature

I think that I missed my calling as a librarian (not media specialist, thank you very much--library = books).  I love being surrounded by books, the smell of lignin, the touch of paper and binding.  I love reading, I love the magic of storytelling, the crafting of other worlds, other lives:

          The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

          Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,

          And as imagination bodies forth

          The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

          Turns into shapes, and gives to airy nothing

          A local habitation and a name.

Or as Dunsany puts it:

          And little he knew of the things that ink may do, how it can mark a dead
          man's thought for the wonder of later years, and tell of happenings that
          are gone clean away, and be a voice for us out of the dark of time, and
          save many a fragile thing from the pounding of heavy ages; or carry to us,
          over the rolling centuries, even a song from lips long dead on forgotten
          hills. 

And most of all, I love sharing books with students, watching them discover those other worlds, other lives, discovering the pleasure of curling up with a well-told story full of compelling characters, appreciating the clever and artful use of language.  In a world suffused with easy entertainment and immediate gratification, it always surprises me that students, for the most part, still respond to the written word (ok, sometimes the spoken word, but I won't quibble too much over audio books).  I don't believe in reluctant readers, only readers who haven't met the right book yet.

I teach middle school, and I am keenly aware that the pressures and demands of high school (not just academics, but driving, dating, working, socializing) means little time available for analog activities like reading books.  I feel a tremendous urgency to spark a love of reading and lay down rails of habit that will remain throughout a lifetime.  I want to keep students reading, and that means holding them accountable, but the old-fashioned summary book report does nothing to encourage interaction with the text (it does, unfortunately, encourage cheating).  Instead, I challenge students to advertise their reading selection by creating posters and book jackets that I display on the walls around school: students are given a creative outlet for interacting with the text, authentically address audience and purpose, and promote literacy school-wide.  Win-Win!

Check out some samples from this year's crop of pleasure reading choices: