Skip to main content

2016 Reading Goal

I accomplished my reading goal last night around 9:00 PM. I was incredibly behind before winter break started, and I was beginning to reassure myself that there's always next year. Luckily my local library has an expansive collection of graphic novels and picture books, so I was able to just barely reach 150 in time.

I know numbers aren't important, but it does feel good to be able to say that I met my goal--even if it's in the last few hours of the year.

As I look at my Year in Books available on Good Reads, I'm starting to think ahead and plan for my reading year ahead. Some things I want to accomplish in my reading life include:


  • Reading more non-fiction. I know that there are well written non-fiction texts, but I tend to shy away from these. Even in my classroom, these are the least checked-out books. I need to not only do a better job selling these titles, but I also need to familiarize myself with more of these texts. I think part of the reason that I read so few non-fiction titles is that I am unable to focus on it right before bed, and that's when I tend to do most of my reading during the school year. I'm closing on my house next week, and I'm looking forward to reading more about homeownership. 
  • Reading more about pedagogy. I know that I'm happier and a better teacher during the school year when I'm reading about teaching practices. The first semester seemed to slip away when it came to reading about pedagogy, and I want to do more of that in the year ahead. I benefit because my thinking is vindicated and stretched, and my students benefit from a break in some of the routine assignments. One of my first professional reads in the months ahead is Writing with Mentors. A co-worker and I have formed our own two-person book group, and I'm excited to plan ways that we can incorporate more mentor texts into our classrooms. 
  • Reading more for me. I tend to read primarily young adult literature in the hopes that I can share books with students. At the same time, I don't necessarily read things that I am interested in. I want to strike more of a balance here, too. Perhaps this will be motivation enough to revive a book group that's gone to the wayside, or maybe I'll reach out and join one of my local library's many groups. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Handwritten Cue Cards in the 21st Century

I just stumbled upon this behind-the-scenes clip of Saturday Night Live's cue card process. This is intense writing. This is writing that is dependent upon trust and checks and balances. Over a short period of time, skits are written, drafted on cards, revised, and the cards revised over and over again. I also really love that SNL continues to use cue cards and not a teleprompter. Like Wally points out, technology can fail. Handwritten cue cards ensure the show goes on. Comedy is hard work. Writing is hard work. Changes are made up until the last minute to get things just right. This is a form of real-world writing.

Six Things to Keep in Mind When Your Class is NaNo-ing

Students recently drafted their reflections about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), so I wrote beside them about the lessons that I had learned. Here they are: Limit the other work you give . While you may feel the pressure to have copious assignments in your grade book (there tends to be a sort of teacher shaming if you don't have many assignments in, as if there is a magical number), you have to recognize what is valuable and what is not, especially during the 30-day writing frenzy that NaNoWriMo is. I tried to make every assignment relevant for the month and their novels. Students encountered "daily challenges" (these quickly turned into every-other-day challenges) that focused on many of the necessary elements to good novels: dialogue, story world development, character creation, subplots, etc. Everything was designed so that students could use their work in their novels, and it allowed me to have short glimpses of the types of things they were writing abo

Past Secretaries of Education

After last night's hearing with nominee DeVos, I decided to research past education secretaries. Senator Alexander talked a lot about "precedent" when it came to procedures regarding the HELP Committee. Let us remember that the first education secretary was appointed in 1979. That's the same year that Congress created the department under Jimmy Carter. This is also the same department that Ronald Reagan promised to abolish. Even the first education secretary had experience in government. Shirley M. Hufstedler was both a federal and state appeals court judge. I'm going to say that because of that experience, she's probably familiar with law and how laws work. As we saw last night, when Betsy DeVos was redirected a question because her answer implied that states could choose to implement federal law or not, she might need a refresher. Then we had Terrel Bell, who was a high school teacher, bus driver, and served in the Marines. Again, a long list of public