I admire Penny Kittle. I think the passion she has for getting young people to enjoy reading is admirable. With that said, reading Book Love has often left me saying to myself “Well, that idea would be great, but it can’t work in the real world . . .” or “Nice goal, too bad school administration won’t buy it . . .” or “That reading plan might work if a teacher never slept . . . ” Especially in the early chapters, while I liked how she underscored the importance of reading, I found myself seeing potential roadblocks and problems to her methods.
Chapter 8 was different. I could see how class-wide, year-to-year topic notebooks could be compelling and interesting. Quarterly reading reflections reminded me of “turning point” essays I did for an experiential honors course as an undergrad, which worked extremely well. The idea I found most intriguing of all was the creation of an “order map” where book titles and authors could be linked by topic, time, relationship, etc. Putting that information on the back wall of classroom to show how ideas and books connect to each other is just good teaching . . . no high technology (or even batteries) required.
The chapter also made me realize that the biggest idea that runs through Kittle’s method is simply asking and asking and asking students about what they like, how they are reacting to what they are reading, and what ideas and questions they have. It’s easy to forget or minimize, but an adult taking a young person seriously and talking with them about their thoughts is important. The teachers that made the biggest impact on me did so by getting me to express myself, and those conversations were meaningful.
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And happy Easter
The third degree . . . this time education 
I think that is one major thing hat Penny Kitttle has managed to do in all of her years of teaching. She gives students books that allow them to express themselves, and the books that she gives are good sources of literature that are able to create life long readers. I also liked how she was able to connect books with other books, ideas, values or problems that those students might be facing. It is GREAT teaching. By using these methods, Kittle’s students are learning to think independently and develop their own set of values by relating what they read to real-life problems.
Truly an idol!
Thanks for reading and commenting!