I Wish I Had This Assignment in High School

One of the most fun things about being a teacher in a district that supports—or at least allows—creative assignments and curricular choices is that you can use or create assignments that you wish somebody had given to you in high school. I had some wonderful, creative teachers, but contemporary practices in my school system in the 90s would never have allowed for the kind of choice reading assignments I can give to my students now.

Our ninth grade curriculum has "outside reading" as one of its components, and while teachers each implement it in their own unique ways, it typically involves having students read a text independently with little or no class time devoted to it. My implementation of outside reading for the last few years has shifted to allowing students as much choice as possible.

There's no better way to improve your writing than a good book
and the right spot to read it in (me in Auke Bay, Alaska in 2006).

That goes for all levels of students. For strong readers, choice allows them to take some risks in expanding their horizons. Too often, the strong students are crushed with so much work that the joy of reading that made them strong in the first place starts to sap away as it becomes a chore. For readers who struggle, choice is an opportunity to find a book that they might really enjoy, and enjoyment is often the quality that's missing from a struggling reader's world. If reading has always been a source of boredom and frustration, the student doesn't read, and the cycle spirals downwards as the school books become more challenging. Choice can allow the kid to pick something that's genuinely interesting to him or her, which can help break that cycle.

The research absolutely supports the idea that the amount a child reads is a key part of expanding vocabulary, increasing fluency, improving writing skills, and hitting pretty much every goal and standard you could have for a high school student. For all the important work we do teaching grammar, vocabulary, and organization, I'm not sure there's any more effective way to improve a kid's language skills than getting a kid to read more stuff with more interest. Kids who read more also get higher standardized test scores in a way that doesn't suck the fun out of learning. Here's an article from the American Association of School Librarians that gathers together a massive amount of research supporting these findings.

For parents wondering how to improve your kids' SAT scores, ACT scores, CAPT scores, grades in the humanities, college admissions prospects, and all the other metrics that sometimes overshadow the the passion, excitement, and engagement of learning: let the kid read whatever he'll read and support it however you can. If it's in standard English, it'll expand his understanding of grammar, complex vocabulary, and sentence structure. The people with the big vocabularies generally got them from books, not from flash cards.

In order to support kids in this endeavor from within the curriculum, I start the process with the summer reading book. Students write reviews of their independently chosen summer reading books, and we kick off outside reading by reading each other's reviews. We also spent a day in the library with Mr. Neenan (@neenanc) learning about ways to find books to enjoy. We asked ourselves, "what skills and knowledge do you need to navigate a bookstore or a library to find something you love?" and shared our answers with the kids. Also, Mr. Neenan and I both spent some time curating a selection of books on GoodReads we've read and loved or hated (here's mine). So based on all of that input from their peers and teachers, students get to pick a new book that they might love, they review it, and the process continues.

So for quarter 3, students pick a book and blog about why and how they picked it. Then, a review of the book is due in a few weeks. Here's the first step:

Take some time to browse the library catalog, GoodReads, and the library itself and pick a new book for your outside read. Really think outside your traditional choices in order to see if you can find a new genre or style that might fascinate and engage you. You can certainly pick a book from a genre or series that you already know you like, since the most important thing is that you end up with a book you'll enjoy, but you should at least consider the less familiar territory first. 

Once you pick a book, write a blog post that explains why you chose the book you did. You need to be specific. If you're wondering what to write about, use these questions to get you started. 

What specific qualities of the book drew you to it? What ultimately made you choose it over other books? What do you hope to get out of reading it? What do you think you will enjoy? How might this book challenge you?

I wish I had this assignment when I was is in high school. There's a ton of benefit to reading classic books together, and that's still a lot of what we do in English 9, but if I can make some space for kids to become independent readers who enjoy it—at least more than they currently do—I've won bigtime.