Owning the novels we read, rather than checking them out from the library, encourages the students to "own" their education. It allows them to write directly in the books, encouraging active reading, allowing students to respond to any and every part of the text. In this way, students deepen their understanding at their own pace and on their own topics of interest.
Writing directly on the page is to overlay one work of art onto another. Students' marginal comments become a helpful repository of their in-the-moment thinking for class discussion--even weeks after the fact. They also become a reminder of their insights, a literary time-capsule, of how they understood the books ideas at this point in their life.
Knowing that students will take these books with them mirrors the learning and growth all educators hope students will take into the world.
About my class
Owning the novels we read, rather than checking them out from the library, encourages the students to "own" their education. It allows them to write directly in the books, encouraging active reading, allowing students to respond to any and every part of the text. In this way, students deepen their understanding at their own pace and on their own topics of interest.
Writing directly on the page is to overlay one work of art onto another. Students' marginal comments become a helpful repository of their in-the-moment thinking for class discussion--even weeks after the fact. They also become a reminder of their insights, a literary time-capsule, of how they understood the books ideas at this point in their life.
Knowing that students will take these books with them mirrors the learning and growth all educators hope students will take into the world.