Don’t Let a Dead Writer Plan Your Summer Reading Program

1. Don’t Let a Dead Writer Plan Your Summer Reading Program A Plan for Making Summer Reading Fun for Middle School and High School Students

2. Why Reading Should Be Fun • Free and voluntary reading will increase a student’s reading comprehension, writing abilities, enjoyment of reading as well as a means to increase reading achievement scores. • Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) is defined as reading because a student wants to read. [1] • Various studies demonstrate that students who read outside the school during the summer and off school hours shows clear indications of reading achievement. [2]

3. Why Reading for Pleasure? Not a New Idea…. Linda Williams in her article Summer Belongs in the Hands of the Students-Celebrating Choice in School Reading Lists talks about how reading the “classics” or dead white man literature may stifle a student’s motivation for reading. Proponents for this side of the debate consider reading itself more important than reading particular titles.[3] She advocates that classics were never really meant to be read by teenagers. They were intended, Williams promotes, “for adults and the literate classes of the day.[4]

4. Why Reading for Pleasure is Such a Good Idea If readers are not allowed to read for pleasure or if reading takes too much effort, readers may become frustrated and quit reading altogether! [6]

5. Summertime Learning Losses • Studies clearly show that all students demonstrate a significant learning loss equaling approximately one month on a grade level equivalent scale during the summer months.[7] • In the presentation paper, What if Summer Learning Loss Were an Education Policy Priority?, the authors of the paper argue that summers remain an untapped resource for school districts and communities as a means to close achievement and performance gaps occurring over the summer.[8]

6. Making Summer Reading Fun-Plan Objectives • To introduce the concept of reading for pleasure over the summer months by including more current and popular fiction • To introduce concepts of literary criticism through the development of a book review magazine. This project is designed to work in conjunction with the summer reading program. • To encourage reading for pleasure and to promote ongoing reading by introducing student-led, informal book talks on books found within the summer reading list.

7. Teaching Team Collaborations Language Arts Technology Department Fine Arts Department Library Media Center

8. Plan Goals With the support of a collaborative teaching team, students will create the following: • Summer Reading Booklist • Student-written book reviews • An Editorial Board which will review content of reviews. • Student-led booktalks • Student-prepared book review magazine with online element • Student reading journals.

9. Project To Do List

10. Initial Planning

11. Pre-Summer Planning Phase

12. 1. Language Arts and Library: Eighth Grade Standard 4 Writing Process, 8.3.2-8.3.5, 8.4.7-8.4.9 2. Creation a Book Review Magazine Language Arts Development of review structure and format; Writing of the reviews Standard 4 Writing Process, 8.3.2-8.3.5, 8.4.7-8.4.9 School Library Selection of materials, resources on book reviews and strategies for writing reviews Standard 4 Writing Process, 8.3.2-8.3.5, 8.4.7-8.4.9 Art Department. Development of the magazine format and layout Technology Department. Development of the magazine by using computerized formats. Standard 8.4.6 3. A Student Editorial Board will be established by Language Arts and the Library to review and oversee the completion of the project. It will also edit the magazine within a predetermined due date. Standards 8.6.4

13. 4. Book Talk-Eighth Grade students will lead a series of book talks based on the books and subsequent reviews from the summer reading list during the school’s middle school lunch hour. Standards 8.7.1, 8.7.2-8.7.9, 8.7.10-8.7.11. 5. Other Standards Impacted during Project Duration Students must take into account the following issues for list development: Intellectual Freedom Age Appropriateness Censorship and Banned Books Book reviews Standards 8.4.4-8.4.6 Appropriateness within the school culture Standards 2-8.2.1, 8.2.4

14. Summer Expectations for Students

15. Fall Implementation Plan

16. Project Assessment • Create and implement a student survey regarding the above described project. These surveys will be evaluated against reading comprehension scores for that particular year. • Conduct another survey to develop a list of summer reading choices for the upcoming summer. • Students conduct own assessment by conducting informal focus group talks with small student groups.

17. Suggested Resources 1. New York Times Book Review, Book Page, Bookmark and Pages magazines for review by students. 2. Other professional review magazine resources such as Horn Book, School Library Journal, VOYA or Book Links. Students may use online sources of these publications. 3. Book review websites such as readingrants.com, teenreads.com, teenink.com, bookreview.com, amazon.com and other sites identified by students. 4. Editing guide. A good guide might be Venolia, Jan. ReWrite Right! Your Guide to Perfectly Polished Prose. California: Ten Speed Press, 1987, 2000. 5. Guide on booktalks by Lucy Schall. Schall, Lucy. Booktalks and More-Motivating Teens to Read. Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited, Inc. 2003. 6. Indiana Standards for Language Arts, Technology. 7. A guide on intellectual freedom and censorship: Intellectual Freedom Manual.

18. The House of Spirits How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents Before We Were Free Band of Brothers Empire of the Sun THWONK! Haunted: The Role of a Mediator Tears of a Tiger Jim the Boy The House of the Scorpion Shattering Glass Fat Kid Rules the World Roots The Autobiography of Malcom X October Sky/Rocket Boy Born Confused Seabiscuit First Part Last The Secret Lives of Bees The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things Tears of a Giraffe: No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Lonesome Dove Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage Walk Two Moons The Wings of Merlin Killer Angels The House on Mango Street Milkweed Troy Year of Wonders Witness Fever 1703 Birds of Prey Wolverine: The Origin Quiver: Green Arrow Pedro and Me Rainbow Boys Cheaper by the Dozen We Have Always Lived in the Castle Lovely Bones Poisonwood Bible Sample Summer Reading List

19. Sources Krashen, Stephen. The Power of Reading-Insights from the Research. Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, Inc. 1993. Reed, Arthea J.S. Comics to Classics-A Guide to Books for Teens and Preteens. New York: Penguin Books, 1988, 1994. Fairchild, Ronald and Matthew Boulay. What if Summer Learning Loss Were an Education Policy Priority? Presentation for 24th Annual APPAM Research Conference, November 9, 2002. Williams, Linda. Summer Belongs in the Hands of the Students-Celebrating Choice in School Reading Lists. VOYA, December 2003, Pages 368-371. Williams, Linda. How I Spent My Summer Vacation…with School Reading Lists. VOYA, February 2002, Page 416-421. Found at http://www.voya.com/WhatsInvoya/SummerVaction.html

20. Sources Schall, Lucy. Booktalks and More-Motivating Teens to Read. Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited, Inc., 2003. Vendolia, Jan. ReWrite Right! Your Guide to Perfectly Polished Prose. Berkeley, California: Ten Speed Press, 2000. Other resources: Shin, Fay H. Motivating Students with Goosebumps and Other Popular Books: A Self-Selected Reading Program for Middle School Students. CSLA Journal, Volume 25, Number 1, Pages 15-19, Fall 2001. Found at http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.proxy.ulib.iupui.edu/hww/results_singl/jhtml Kellerstrass, Katherine. Summer Reading Program. Illinois Libraries, Volume 82, Number 1, Pages 43-56, Winter 2000. Found at <http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.proxy.ulib.iupui.edu/hww/results_singl/jhtml McCaffrey, Meg. Summertime and the Reading is Easy. School Library Journal. Volume 50, Issue 1, Page 44, January 2004. Found at http://web13.epnet.com/DeliverPrintSave.asp?tb=1&_ug=dbs+f5h%Cafh%2Cmih%2Ce... Young Adult Library Services Association. Teen Reading. Teens vote for favorite young adult book. American Library Association. Found at http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/teenreading/teenstopten/2003teenstop.htm Hubert, Jennifer. Reading Rants-Out of the Ordinary Teen Booklists. 1998-2004. Found at http://tln.lib.mi.us/~amutch/jen/ St. Pius X Catholic High School. Aspire! Program 2003. Atlanta, Georgia. Found at http://www.spx.org/faculty/library/summer/9gr.htm