The very rare high school reading class

I was fortunate enough to teach at a school that supported and encouraged failure amongst its teachers. So when I pitched the idea that our 10th graders needed a reading class in addition to their English class and was given a $5,000 budget, I was only partially freaking out when it did not work.
Actually, I was covered in hives. But that motivated me to hit the books and talk with the kids to come up with something that was amazing. I will save you the pain of my failure and just get to my success! So after asking the kids what they wanted and after reading I Read It But I Don’t Get It by Chris Tovani and The Reading Zone by Nancy Atwell this is what we ended up with.

Here is what it takes:
Tons of books (you can procure these at thrift shops, yard sales and Donors Choose Projects)

Tons of post its
List of what good readers do
List of what to do when I am stuck/lost
Honesty about your reading habits
Benchmarking system to produce data
A healthy reading habit of your own
Computers (optional)

First- fill the classroom with books. Invite colleagues and students to bring books in. When you get a large batch of books-- pretend it is Christmas. I taught 6 classes/day. When a box of books came in from our Donors Choose Projects, I had to repack them 6 times so the next class thought they were opening the books. That’s how excited my students, inner city below reading level 10th graders, got when they got to dig through the books.

Second-explain to the students the point of the class. Here are some key points I hit

• Reading is fundamental
  
• We only get better at reading by reading
  
• We know what good readers do, so we will study it and practice it
  
• Even the best readers can get better at reading
  
• It’s not that you don’t like reading, it is that you have not found the right types of books
  
• If you know how to read, you can learn anything you want
  

Third- things to teach

• What good readers do
  

• See here: http://www.schoolimprovement.com/strategy-of-the-week/qualities-of-a-good-reader/
  

• What real readers do
  

• We don’t read books we do not like
  
• We talk about what we are reading
  
• We reread passages we do not get
  
• We skim parts we find boring or  (thus the option for computers-- we would post on Goodreads!)
  
• We bail on a book even if we are halfway through if we lost interest
  
• We reread some books
  

(Check out the Reader’s Bill of RIghts by Daniel Pennac” https://www.fantasticfiction.com/p/daniel-pennac/rights-of-reader.htm)

• Teach annotation- POST IT NOTES!
  

• I had students annotate any time the related to something they read to something they experienced or read before or something they learned about, any time they questioned something or figured something out. Eventually, they were not allowed to question without guessing a possible answer or reason (inferencing….and this went for vocab too!)
  

• Literary forms and  literary terms, the state’s reading standards
  

• MINI LESSONS- this is how each class started- 10 minutes mini lesson on an important skill
  
• Each class ended with students reflecting on what they read that day that related to the mini lesson
  

• How to discuss and write about books
  

• When are summaries what people want
  
• When is analysis and critique what they want
  

Eventually when I returned to the English classroom, I was able to incorporate so much of this beauty into that class. Future blogs will highlight what I did there.