The Forty-Book Requirement:

This year students will be setting a goal to read at least 40 books! The breakdown looks like this:

5 Poetry anthologies

5 Traditional literature

5 Realistic fiction

2 Historical fiction

4 Fantasy

2 Science fiction

2 Mystery

4 Informational

2 Biography, autobiography, or memoir

9 Free choice chapter-books

I know this seems like a lot (probably insurmountable for some of my students), but students will be able to include chapter books I (or another teacher) read aloud and books we complete together. Books that exceed 350 pages will count as two books. With all this extra reading the hope is that not only will their reading levels greatly improve, but that students become life long readers. There won't be weekly reading logs to fill out with a lot of busy work, that isn't the point. Students will keep track of which books they are reading, when they finish them (or quit reading them and choose another), and the genres they have covered. Each week they will write a reader's response in their notebook, which is simply a letter they write to me about what they choose to share about that weeks' reading. I'll be writing back throughout the year (maybe not every week with 60+ students), and I will be having weekly reading conferences with my students.