Reading Lists

Today was dedicated to trying to develop a reading list for the upcoming school year. A majority of the time was spent staring into the book of suggested essays and trying to figure out in what unit and with what major novels the essays could be taught in. The issue that keeps presenting itself is that there are so many things to read...so MANY books and essays and poems and others texts. I've categorized various texts in about 5 different units, not including the Shakespeare and Graduation Paper...which makes me wonder if we're going to have time to get through all of this material.

Part of teaching is practicing and reflecting and then changing. The problem that I have is that the reflecting time may come to late for the kids that I'm going to have in this upcoming year. That's why I want my long term plan to work. I'm hoping to go to my school early and get some feedback from somebody (really anybody would be helpful).

On a completely unrelated (well maybe not completely unrelated) note, I just got a message from a student who will be in my class next year asking about summer reading assignments. It excites me that some of the students are eager to get started. I hope they like the collection of their first 3 essays and the novel The Things They Carried. The essays are all about the writing process and the importance of finding one's voice. I hope they pick up on the theme...

Short post today, still have a lot to think about on reading lists and genre and how to group texts to be meaningful for students.

A good majority of my day was spent like this...