Teaching and Stuff

So here I am, sitting in the school library and trying to get students to find books for their term reading project.  Every term they are are required to choose a book, read it, and write a paper analyzing it for theme, character development, etc.  They have the entire term to complete the assignment and I'm fairly lenient in regards to choice, so it should be easy.  The intention is for students to develop a taste for reading and generally gain exposure to books, applying the lessons learned during class readings to their own choices of texts.

Like all assignments, some students respond better than others.  It's interesting to see how set in their ways teenagers can be, applying seemingly inflexible rules to their choices even though they have, by their own admissions, "not read many books."  I have one student, for example, who only wants to read autobiographies of famous footballers.  That's all well and good, but I think it's a shame that he's limiting himself to a rather specific genre.  Luckily, I was able to turn him onto Walter Dean Myers and, after reading the first chapter of Fallen Angels, he grudgingly admitted it was "pretty cool, actually."  You know, "actually," as any book that wasn't written by an overpaid athlete would, by default, suck. 

But it's all about the little victories.  Hopefully, he'll finish the book and be able to write about it.  Maybe it will open his eyes a little bit to what's out there.  Maybe it won't, but at least he tried.

In the end, that's all we can ask, really.

Poison Spirit, 2nd Edition!

Hey everyone, the new edition of Poison Spirit goes on sale this month!  You can find it here.

Enjoy!