A good amount of students will say, "I don't like reading!" I know that is because they have not found the book that draws them in. For me, it was Atul Gawande's article, "The Itch". Before then, nothing kept my attention for long and reading is what others did for pleasure, not me. When I think back at that article, a couple things come up for me. 1) It was relatable, I could read along and my own experiences would surface and 2) It was written by a person of color (POC). Before then, I don't know if anything I came across was by a POC author, it took 19 years for me to read a piece of literature by someone like me.
My school is 73% POC yet last year, Black, Latinx, and Native authors combined wrote just 6% of new children’s books published. There is a huge disconnect between who makes up the demographics in our school population and the authors available in the school library. I need to change this and create a culture of reading in my classroom. I believe a way to do this is to have books that represent my student and offer a variety of reading levels.
About my class
A good amount of students will say, "I don't like reading!" I know that is because they have not found the book that draws them in. For me, it was Atul Gawande's article, "The Itch". Before then, nothing kept my attention for long and reading is what others did for pleasure, not me. When I think back at that article, a couple things come up for me. 1) It was relatable, I could read along and my own experiences would surface and 2) It was written by a person of color (POC). Before then, I don't know if anything I came across was by a POC author, it took 19 years for me to read a piece of literature by someone like me.
My school is 73% POC yet last year, Black, Latinx, and Native authors combined wrote just 6% of new children’s books published. There is a huge disconnect between who makes up the demographics in our school population and the authors available in the school library. I need to change this and create a culture of reading in my classroom. I believe a way to do this is to have books that represent my student and offer a variety of reading levels.
Read more