My Experiment

Confession: I was not a reader when I was in school.

I always loved writing--that was my reason for enjoying my English classes, not to mention my reason for maintaining relatively high grades in my English classes.

Because I had parents who were readers, and who both had extensive vocabularies of their own, I was able to develop a vocabulary that probably made me seem like I was a reader.

But I wasn't a reader.

Sometimes I would begrudgingly read the literature assigned in class, and sometimes I would find myself profoundly moved by what I had read, as I was with To Kill a Mockingbird in my sophomore year.  And, although Mockingbird remains one of my favorite novels to this day, it was not enough to make a reader out of me.  It was not enough to keep me from watching Pride & Prejudice (the BBC version) instead of reading it, or frantically flipping through Crime & Punishment the weekend before it was due, both of which were transgressions I committed in my Senior AP English class.

I didn't become a reader until the summer after I graduated from high school.  I had avoided Harry Potter for six years, and although it had been recommended to me by at least three eager school librarians on as many occasions, I firmly refused to try it on the grounds that it was "a book for nerds" (which must have been confusing, coming from a scrawny kid with large glasses not unlike Harry's).  However, on one family car ride in which my then-11-year-old sister was listening to the audiobook of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I found myself unable to either tune out the story, or mock it sarcastically.  Jim Dale was narrating the scene in which the Weaselys visit the Dursleys to pick up Harry during the summer holiday.  Harry's loutish cousin Dudley had just eaten a bewitched toffee which had caused his tongue to swell to a grotesque size, and I found myself laughing out loud at Rowling's vivid and clever descriptions of the chaos that followed.  My resolve shattered, I picked up Sorcerer's Stone that evening and did not resurface until I had finished Order of the Phoenix (the fifth, and at that time, the newest, book in the series) six days later.

After that, my world was never the same.  I devoured Ender's Game, then the rest of the Ender series, then the Shadow series.  I consumed the Shaara Civil War trilogy.  I laughed as I read The Princess Bride, and wept as I read The Kite Runner.  I tried Crime and Punishment again, and found myself captivated.  Emboldened, I ventured into the Brothers Karamazov and loved that, too.  I revisited Narnia and Middle Earth, Toad Hall and Mole End.  I rode along with James Herriot to farms all over the Yorkshire Dales. I tore through weighty biographies of John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and Harry S. Truman.  This past summer, I picked up a book that had been on my shelf for two years: Book Love, by Penny Kittle.

Kittle, an English teacher, emphasizes the importance of modeling and nurturing a habit for reading and a love for reading to students, particularly adolescents.  This, Kittle maintains, is crucial to empowering the students to successfully read classic texts, and to develop critical reading skills in general.  Before I had even made it halfway through the book, my mind had begun to overflow with ideas for the coming school-year.

I went through my calendar and set aside one class period each week solely for silent, sustained reading.  I made sure to clearly mark those days on the calendar so that I would not forget, and then planned the rest of my units with those dates set apart.

Then, I contacted our school librarian, and in collaboration, worked out the following plan:
On the silent, sustained reading day, the students will meet in the library and not in my classroom.  They will leave class-work behind and only bring computers or phones if they need music in order to focus, or require easy access to an electronic dictionary, with the understanding that they will be held accountable for the use of their devices, should they become a distraction.

Each week, a member of the library staff, or even other teachers, or coaches, will come in at the start of the period and share briefly about something they had read and enjoyed recently.  Of course, I will also regularly share recommendations with the students, as well.

Students may read fiction or non-fiction, sci-fi or fantasy, action or romance; they may even choose a magazine from the library's publications corner--they simply need to find something to read that will hold their attention for an entire class period, so that they can get a feel for reading for pleasure, and at the same time, build up the stamina to engage with the readings (whether speeches, essays, articles or novels) that they will encounter in English and Humanities class.  My hope is that they will develop a love for reading that will extend beyond this school-year and these days that I have set aside.

We had our first reading days this week--Wednesday for my first period English class and today for my Humanities classes.  The students seemed willing, even eager, to give the experiment a try, and for three periods this week, I enjoyed the most blissful kind of silence, as high school juniors all settled down to read something they had chosen for themselves.  After making sure that everyone had something to read, I picked up Steve Jobs' biography from the shelf and found myself absorbed, each class period ending entirely too soon.  I wound up checking out the biography, and look forward to having something to read for fun, myself.

This is my great experiment for the year, and while this is only the beginning, I'm excited and encouraged by what I saw on our first day of silent, sustained reading.  I will definitely provide updates as the year goes on about how this is working out!