I have always loved reading – and truly now I find myself watching less and less TV and reading more and more. I believe my love of reading came from my toddler days in Brush, Colorado where the treat of the summer was to go to the public library. For most of the summer they held a reading contest in which for every book you read and wrote a “report” on, you got a sticker to put on a certificate that was right on the library wall as you entered the building. It was such a since of pride to have my certificate full of stickers.
Years later, I really hated the idea that reading must now be graded and worse yet used as a punishment. Every 10 pages read meant some kind of a quiz. Every novel was reduced to metaphors and meaning. We were truly teaching students that reading was a chore, and they, in turn, were looking forward to the day of graduating when they could toss the book away and return to Netflix. In my later days teaching I created a Reading Club – – a group that meant once or twice a week during lunch and did nothing but discuss the play that everyone read the previous week on a play of my choosing. We had no test, no essay, no paper, no grade, no obligation and no credit! My numbers grew every lunch to almost 30. We did it only for the love of dramatic literature, and I noticed the best of conversation about the reading and the biggest of smiles as the next one was assigned.