Teachers believe they are thoughtfully selecting titles for student consumption; that they are providing titles that students want to read (Lao, 2005; Fletcher, Grimley, Greenwood, and Parkhill, 2012; Heron-Hruby, Trent, & Stiles, 2016). However, the attitude from students is that classrooms are not places where they will find books they want to read (Lao, 2005; Scullin, 2020), and resistance to selecting and reading books in the classroom persists (Gambrell, 2011; Lao, 2005; Scullin, 2020; Virgil, 1994)
If students are not finding material they want to read, despite the best efforts and intent of teachers in book title selection, risks in reading achievement and life-long reading will persist, with implication for college and career readiness, democratic participation in adulthood, and perpetuated inequity (Dernikos & Thiel, 2019; Dewitz & Graves, 2014)
Student participation in book title selection for the classroom library generates a sense of agency, related to concepts of self-efficacy and autonomy. When students select the titles, they want to see in the classroom library or on the classroom bookshelf, they are exercising their control as readers and as participants of the classroom. This has implications for competency in reading, gratification in reading, and lifelong reading (The Value of Independent Reading: Analysis of Research, n.d.; Williams, 2017). Literature demonstrates that student agency is missing in constructing a classroom library, with potential negative implications for reading achievement and democratic participation.