There’s a lot of conversation happening lately around student reading stamina. Rose Horowitch’s Atlantic article, “The Elite College Students who Can’t Read Books,” helped stir the pot. I’m sure you’ve seen evidence of the same issues she brings up – that students are struggling to stay focused through books, and often come to you having read a lot of excerpts and short pieces rather than full novels. Test-prep, phone culture, COVID – there are all kinds of reasons, but the bottom line for you as a teacher is, what can you do about it?
Today’s request for our new “Plan My Lesson” series comes from a teacher looking for ways to help her students build their reading stamina. She’s wondering how she can help her students work toward longer reads and more of ’em.
Perhaps you’re wondering the same? This is a big question, and we’re just planning one lesson. But let’s zoom in on a snapshot of a class that could help students move toward longer, more-engaged reading sessions. We’ll start, like The Odyssey, in medias res.
Picture this Classroom
First things first, today we need to talk about the space we’re in. If a major goal of the class is to build student reading stamina, the space can be a huge help.
When you look to the shelves, ideally you’re going to see a class library full of student favorites, perhaps organized by genre, with popular titles pulled out and displayed on the tops and across nearby window sills. Bookmarks are stuck out of the top of a few, with recommendation blurbs from previous readers.
Along the whiteboard tray you might see featured books along some kind of theme, like “Reader Favorites from Last Year,” with quick hooks scrawled in Expo marker above them.
On the walls, it would be great to see book posters, book covers, or book selfies, all featuring the favorite reads of the class. A QR poster might lead to a digital bookshelf featuring popular audio and e-books, which students can access through their school or local library digital access.
(Lighthouse members, you’re going to find support for all this in our Choice Reading Section.)
Today’s Lesson in Context
Students, lets imagine, have started the year with shorter high-interest pieces: performance poetry, short stories, podcasts, excerpts. At the same time, you’ve been building your choice reading program, getting everyone started with 10 minutes a day of reading, quick check-ins, lots of book talks (even some from guest readers from last year and other adults at the school), First Chapter Fridays, and everything else you can think of.
They’re responding well. They liked the performance poetry, found the podcasts intriguing, and fell for several of your First Chapter Friday reads. Everyone has an independent reading book and most kids are reading them during the daily 10 minutes.
Now you’re about to up the ante.
Introducing High-Interest Dystopia Book Clubs
Book clubs can be a great way to move students toward longer reads, building on the success of your independent reading program and letting students still have choice over what they’re interested in reading.
So for today’s lesson, we’re introducing high-interest dystopia book clubs. During these book clubs, students will meet in small groups 2-3 times a week to discuss the reading and do related mini-projects. Since students are still building their reading stamina, you could break up book club days into a combination of reading sprints (to help kids get through more of their books) and book club meetings. (To hear a podcast about verse book clubs with a similar structure, check out this one with Caitlin Lore). You could use the dystopia book clubs I designed last year for The Lighthouse, or create your own.
But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Today’s lesson is about INTRODUCING the texts, and letting students do their book tasting.
To create a book tasting, general practice is to pull your tables into cafe style seating, play some music, maybe serve tea or cocoa (maybe even snacks). However, since this is a DYSTOPIA book tasting, you might want to make the tasting a little more dramatic instead of cozy. You could choose intense instrumental music, darken the room, use black napkins, etc.
As students come in, I’d let them sit in the book club seating and start getting curious about what’s going on. But start by introducing the concept of dystopia. I think film trailers are a great way to warm up with this. There are a TON of fabulous dystopian film trailers, like the ones for The Hunger Games, The Giver, Divergent, The Truman Show, Fahrenheit 451, and Mitchells vs. Machines. (The Matrix is great too, for older kids who can handle the maturity level).
If your students have tech, you can let them explore a choice board of the trailers with a partner or with headphones. Or you can play a few for the class, asking them to notice common elements of what they see. What do they notice about the story, mood, and setting of these trailers? Once they’ve watched and discussed that a bit, work together as a class to define dystopia.
Now you’re ready for your book tasting to start. Project your “Dystopia Book Tasting” header onto the screen and flip on your music.
Scatter your book club options onto tables around the room. Since you’re trying to increase readers’ stamina, you probably want to use quite a few “hook books.” You might consider The Hunger Games, Scythe, Divergent, The Maze Runner, and The Giver. If your students, or at least some of them, are ready for a stretch, you could consider Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Animal Farm, Snake Falls to Earth, and Brave New World. Be aware, many of these dystopian novels, by virtue of their very being as dystopian novels, deal with heavy themes and contain violence. It’s important to preview books and make sure they’re ok for your community.
Now you’re ready to give students time to explore the book club possibilities. Demonstrate how to preview (or “taste”) a book by reading the back cover, checking out the front cover illustration, reading a page or two, flipping through, etc. Give students a handout to jot down their thoughts as they move through the books.
By the end of the class period, students should be intrigued by dystopia, know what it is, and hopefully be feeling excited about a couple of book possibilities. Have them turn in a ranking of their top two or three choices for book clubs as an exit ticket, and you’ll be ready to launch into high-interest, stamina-building book clubs next class.
Teaching Takeaways
OK, a quick run through of teaching takeaways here.
First of all, consider your space. For this stamina-building push, building in a reading library and visual recommendations for great reads is a big part of building reading culture in the room. But you can do this with other areas of teaching too. MLA posters can provide a handy back-up for kids struggling to remember citation format. Colorful literary terms cards always ready as a resource can be great for students doing close reading or group discussion. Writing makerspace elements can help writers tackling any assignment.
Next, remember how well students respond to multimedia. Building in 2 minute film trailers to help hook students into dystopia is a fun way to get them engaged and excited about the materials, yet it doesn’t turn over much of class to watching a movie. There is so much gold to be found on Youtube, as long as you dig carefully.
Then there’s the idea of book clubs. I think every course should be featuring a book clubs unit if possible. Cost an issue? Work with your librarian and see if you can’t get 10 copies of each book for 6 weeks through inter-library loan (like this creative teacher), or do a Donors Choose project. Book clubs let you bring in more authors and choice to your curriculum, a huge factor in encouraging readers and building their interest in books. Check out this episode, “Students need Diverse Texts and Choice,” if you’d like to learn more about that.
I can’t not talk about meeting students where they are here. I once taught a class of sophomores that was heavily filled with developing bilingual students. It was an amazing, dynamic, fun group to teach. But we were all hurt by the required texts. Each day of our Dante’s Inferno and Canterbury Tales units, I couldn’t do much beyond simply explaining to them what was happening in the books. I felt like a translator, and it felt very wrong to me. They were ready to use their growing skills to interpret text and discuss ideas, we just needed the RIGHT text for each kid. If I could have done a book club unit, I could have included classics for kids ready and wanting them, but I could also have included texts to help meet the needs of my many students’ whose English levels made Dante’s Inferno feel like a wall. If your goal is to build stamina in your readers, a lot of their reading needs to come from choice and be of real interest to them.
Finally, never underestimate the fun of a little change of pace like a book tasting! Changing up your seating, adding a little music, and projecting a fun image on your screen are all free, and they create a special hook to help build interest.
