ABSTRACT
Just as teachers can learn a great deal by inventorying, students also can be recruited in the effort to learn more about themselves as readers by examining the choices they make. The activities that follow present different ways for students—individually and as a class—to reflect on their interests and habits as readers. The following activity, “Reading Celebrities,” honors and makes public children’s often hidden or unacknowledged interests and skills as readers. Students participate in an interview with a family member to create a reading autobiography, and then contribute to a live or videotaped presentation on “Reading Celebrities.” Inviting students and their families to reflect on all their reading, in school and outside of school, brings the often self-sponsored but “discounted” reading of nonfiction and pop culture sources into the classroom where it can enrich literacy learning.
