Week Three

The reading program is going well. They complained a little at first but once they are now getting into their books a little they are doing better. I am really glad that we were able to get everything started without much trouble. I was really surprised by the way that they chose their books though. They made a big deal about what the book covers looked like. Sometimes they would pick out a book based only on that. I don't know why I didn't realize that it would be something so important to them because high schoolers, 9th graders in particular, are very wary of the appearance of themselves and things surrounding their lives as well. Also, cover art is usually meant to catch people and make them want to read books. I am a visual person to an extent but the words that describe the book on the back are much more important to me. I might have felt a little awkward in high school when I carried around a book with weird art but I still read it because of the words and not the cover. I must admit, though, that I am into reading vampire fiction of all types (I even took a class at WVU on the subject, yes, there is such a class) and sometimes I am reluctant to carry those books around because the covers are explicitly sexual or violent looking. It is strange to me how much a picture means to a work of literature.

I am glad that on my initial survey of the students I included a section for them to show what made them interested in reading certain books. It was informative to see that lots of students choose books based on movies they have seen or ones that their parents recommend. Mrs. DeVault and I took the survey as well and she says that she looks for books that have received awards. I noticed that she recently chose to read a book based on the awards it showed on the front. I have always skimmed over the awards on books so it was neat to find out that people use those to choose books. All of the information I have gathered from the survey and from observation in the classroom about how students decide what to read is helping me to decide what books to choose for the classroom. In the future I want to be sure to choose a variety of books not only based on their subjects but also on their appearance.