Reading Workshop Has Begun!

We’re in the midst yet another full and active week in 8th grade. Reading Workshop is in full swing! Basically that means that on any given Monday or Tuesday morning, eighteen lucky girls can be found spread out all over the 8th grade library reading books of their choice and/or writing in their reading journals for 90 uninterrupted minutes. (Ask your 8th grader for details.) The immense popularity as well as success of this venture is based on a very simple tenet: if a girl (it works for boys too!) is allowed to read what truly interests her, she will read voraciously and will eventually develop her tastes and talents as an intelligent, informed reader. Even after only one full session with each group, I’ve been amazed at how quiet and focused each gathering has been.
The reading journal is a place where students can exchange thoughts, impressions, questions, suggestions and the like about reading and literature with each other as well as with me. In it we write back and forth to one another about anything and everything literary, nothing too terribly formal or fine-tuned, more just an ongoing written conversation about what we’re reading, how it impacts as well as educates us and why. Here are the general guidelines we follow:

RULES FOR READING WORKSHOP

1. You must read a book. Magazines, newspapers and comic books (Anime) don’t have the chunks of text you need to develop fluency, and they won’t help you discover who you are as a reader of literature.
2. Don’t read a book you don’t like. Don’t waste time with a book you don’t love when there are so many great ones out there waiting for you.
3. If you don’t like a book, find another one. Browse, ask me or a friend for a recommendation, do an internet search (Amazon.com always has reviews and such) or check our “Book Reviews” binder for suggestions.
4. It’s all right to reread a book you love. This is what readers do!
5. It’s okay to skim or skip parts if you get bored or stuck; readers do this, too!
6. Record every book you finish or abandon on the form entitled “Student Reading Record.” Collect data about yourself as a reader, look for patterns, and take satisfaction in your accomplishments over time.
7. Understand that reading is thinking. Do nothing to distract me or other readers. Don’t put your words in our brains as we’re trying to escape into the worlds created by the authors of our books. Simply put: Reading Workshop is a quiet endeavor!
8. When you confer with me, use as soft a voice as I use when I talk to you: whisper!
9. Read (and/or write in your reading journal) the entire class period.
10. Read as well and as much as you can!

The goal here is obvious: we’re seeking to explore and enhance our literary territories as well as firmly establish intentional reading as a life-long habit. As I explained to our 8th graders, reading – interaction with the written word – will necessarily be a central part of their lives for the next eight years…at a bare minimum!

Oh and if your 8th grader tells you, when you admonish her to put the book down, turn off the lights and go to sleep, that "It's homework!"...she's right...it is! The expectation is that an SGS 8th grader will read thirty minutes per day, seven days a week...on average. Reading, much like a muscle, needs regular and ongoing exercise in order to build into a strength.