I love reading. But I apparently also had a long list of excuses about why I couldn't read as often as I should: 1) My family keeps me pretty busy (a husband, two school-aged kids who play sports) 2) I work full time, coach, sponsor multiple extracurricular activities 3) I work at my church (youth leader, choir director, musician) 4) I'm just REALLY, REALLY busy. But, all of this doesn't matter when part of my job means I'm supposed to be able to recommend books at the drop of a hat to students, teachers, and community members. In August, I challenged myself to read a book a week and I made sure students knew what I was doing so they could hold me accountable. I created posters (like the one below) on Canva and posted them at my desk (i.e. bookcase) and the main door of the media center. I created email graphics as well (see below) and put the books I finished out on social media so others could use my recommendations. Once I finish a book, I hang the poster up on my "Guess What Gibson's Reading" wall in the media center so students can take a look at the covers & scan the QR codes to see if they might be interested in something I've read.
I didn't think that this small challenge would make an impact, but boy was I wrong. Once I finished a book and students asked for recommendations, anything that went up on "The Wall" was immediately checked out. Some of those books have never made it back on the shelves because there is a hold list a mile long for them. Those copies include: I'm Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter The Hate U Give Dry Scythe The Poet X Monday's Not Coming One of Us is Lying Dear Martin More of our teachers are giving students the time and the space to read independently in their classes thanks to some in-depth studying we have made in Penny Kittle's Book Love, but our students are just excited about reading and it's the coolest experience I have ever had as an educator. How excited you might ask? Well, we hit 10,000 checkouts for the Fall 2018 semester. Our high school students checked out that many books in 90 days!! It is amazing! The trend continues this semester as I saw more than 3100 checkouts in the month of January alone. Our school focused on student literacy for the 2018-2019 school year and our entire district will focus on literacy in the coming year so we are excited to see what impact this will have on student achievement!
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Author: Jenn Gibson
Teacher. Librarian. Technology Guru. Barista. Archives
May 2019
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