Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers | 
“Your passion is contagious“ (Kittle 61).
As future English teachers, many of us enjoy literature, but many students have not developed a love for it yet or have been so deeply discouraged in the past that they have given up trying. My role as an English teacher is to have a passionate joy embracing my students when I talk about a book. My attitude toward a book influences theirs whether I can see it or not. We are the guiding light for our kids!
While I found the explanation of the “Book Talk“ extremely helpful in understanding how to help students develop a love for reading, I was particularly struck by the section discussing how to use it for writing. Last semester, there was a focus on Mentor Texts, and while I was able to see how they could be used on a larger scale, I was still left confused on how it would work in practice. Kittle's explanation and annotation guide eased the worry!
I thought you all might appreciate this. My students read for 10-15 minutes almost every day. Class sizes (26, 19, & 14 students) and reading ability varies. I have two girls who average about 300-400 pages per week. But all of these numbers are impressive and I am going to challenge them to go for triple or even quintuple these amounts! #teachersoflitsy
Not only did this book come in the mail (I now own three Kittle books), but I made one epic book haul at the CALS book sale. My excuse is that most of these aren‘t even for me, they are for my classroom library. #bookhaul #ilikebigbooksandicannotlie #teacher
Oh my goodness Jessica @Lovesbooks87!!! I am totally blown away by your generosity!! My students are going to be so excited to see all of these new books on Monday! I can't thank you enough!! And thanks for the m&ms for me! 😁#englishteacher #librarylove #booklove #teachersoflitsy
@Lovesbooks87 Some of your donated books are on display in my classroom!! My students loved hearing the blurbs on the backs of the books today, and some of the books already got checked out! 📚 After I put the rest of your books on the bookshelf, I ran out of space, so my principal is getting me another bookshelf! #ya #booklove #librarylove #englishteacher #teachersoflitsy
pickThis was an interesting one. I liked a lot of what Kittle had to say—and it was great to see pragmatic advice—but some of it was not great. Not all kids can read silently (hi, ADD brain). Screen reading is reading. Literature™️ is not inherently better than genre books. Telling nonreaders they haven‘t found the right book can be condescending and discouraging (despite our intentions). But overall it was good.
Diving back into literacy class reading.
Successful 1st week of school! I spent waaay too much💲adding books to my classroom library this summer, but I'm so glad I did. I've had several students borrow books already. I thought maybe I'd be done buying books when school started, but this year's students like to read so much, they've asked me to buy specific books they want to read that the school library doesn't have. Now I have a great reason to buy more books, lol! 📚 #englishteacher
Yay! More of the classroom library books I ordered got here today! Whiskers (who is usually too shy for pictures) wanted to be in this one. 🙀 #ya #librarylove #booklove #englishteacher #teachersoflitsy #catsoflitsy
Yay! More of the classroom library books I ordered got here today! Smoky approves of all of them. 😸 #ya #librarylove #booklove #englishteacher #teachersoflitsy #catsoflitsy
I bought several new books for my classroom library, and some of them got here today!! #ya #librarylove #booklove #englishteacher #teachersoflitsy
What my Sophomores have read so far with SSR. #teachersoflitsy
pickSo. The Straits Times (leading newspaper here in Singapore) was just in my home to take a photo for a feature they are doing on my research and higher degree course. Of course I did not dress up like this (hehe), so this was taken a few days back.
Another pile to #unhaul #donate #purge or #readitforward
I would love to book swap, but that defeats the purpose. I have a problem. 🙂
pickMust re-read this every year before school starts.
pickMust re-read this every year before school starts.
Finally got around to printing a BOTNS bingo card! Since there are like 17 people on this cover, I think I'm good. 😜
"A book isn't rigorous if students aren't reading it. Every student must become a reader who *can* read Jane Austen. How? We start where they are."
