I’ve written before about my goal of classroom library mirroring.

What’s that, you ask?

Classroom library mirroring means that every book that you have in your physical classroom library is also ready for students to read on their Kindles.

So if a title is on the shelf, it’s also on the Kindle — and vice versa.

There are many benefits of mirroring. The three biggest ones are:

1. More than one student can read the same book at the same time,
2. Physical books don’t get lost or damaged because they stay on the shelf,
3. Students get the benefits of browsing (the colorful covers! the blurbs on the back!) for a book without all the painful side effects of checking one out. (Yes, say goodbye to all library checkout systems!)

I can see why some students (and teachers, and parents) might rebel against classroom library mirroring. After all, it’s pretty aggressive (and I’d love to hear your thoughts about it).

“You mean that I can’t read real books?” a student may ask.

Right now, I’m not ready to say what I want to say, which is, “Nope. You can’t read real books. But you can look at them here on the shelf and read them on your Kindle. And if you can’t deal with that, then try your public library!”

But I’d like to become bold enough to follow through with what I know is the right answer.

In order to get there, I need to make sure that true mirroring occurs. It’s not easy. Here is a case study of what I’m talking about:

Can you tell the big difference between the two photos? Yep, one of the physical books has an ebook counterpart, whereas the other doesn’t.

This happens a lot. My physical classroom library contains more than 500 books, while my ebook library has 205 titles. There’s a big gap there. The reverse is true as well. There are some books that are on the Kindles but not on the shelves. A generous donor may buy a title in one format but not in the other.

It’s time for me to make the investment to mirror the two libraries. It’ll be a big project. Three hundred books, after all, will cost around $3,000. This project might take a couple years, but I’m willing to be patient. After all, ebooks aren’t going away anytime soon, even if ereaders change and get fancier.

I also need to make sure to buy both formats of a book when a student makes a request. In other words, if a student wants to read The Future of Us, and I’m pretty sure that the title will be popular, my policy should be to order both the physical and ebook versions. For $20, the title is now available to all students forever. Not too shabby.

One more thing: an organizational challenge. Each ebook needs to be available to all students, but each title, according to Amazon policy, can be shared by only six devices at once. This has never been a problem so far, but it’s possible that more than six students at the same time would want to read the same book.

What do you think about my mirroring idea? Is it a little too much, or does it makes sense? I’d love to hear your thoughts. 

 Take a look at this impressive classroom library.

This library comes from the classroom of Erica Beaton, a teacher in Grand Rapids, Michigan. For more information, please check out her blog: B10 Loves Books.

Here are some reasons I like it:

1. Look at all those great books!

2. The shelves are tall, wide, and not too deep.

3. She has multiple copies of many titles.

4. There are tons of forward-facing books.

5. The books look new.

I’m very impressed. Maybe someday, I’ll have a classroom library that looks like this! 

 Today I’m organizing all my books using Goodreads.

The first thing I decided, after much thought, was to create two Goodreads accounts to split the books I’ve read from those in my classroom library.

So I’m both iseroma and markisero on Goodreads.

Then I worked a little (but not too much) on organization and cataloging. Goodreads calls categories “shelves.”  It’s important that I know where all my books are, so I made shelves to track whether books are in my home library, on my Kindle, or back at the library. To make sure I maintained sanity, I decided (at least for today) not to organize my books by genre. That would likely spell doom.

Now I’m adding books! Goodreads has an excellent phone app that lets you scan books that automatically get shelved. The scanner doesn’t work every time, but it’s pretty reliable and saves a lot of time. The only problem is that Goodreads merges identical items, so it might be hard to keep track of multiple copies of books.

Will I be able to finish this project today? Unlikely, but I’m hoping. Once everything is accounted for in Goodreads, I can proceed with my next step: figuring out which teacher(s)  I want to partner with this year to share my classroom library and to promote independent reading. 

 Thanks to generous donors, I’ve purchased the following five books this week that my students requested: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Little Bee, The Red Scarf, Three Cups of Tea, and The Help.

These are all high-interest books. Although I don’t personally like all the books (The Help annoyed me, for example), they’re high-quality books that book clubs choose all the time.

I’m proud of my students for selecting excellent books to read. And I’m very appreciative to the people who have given money to build our Kindle library.

(Did you notice the ChipIn sidebar? I received an $18 donation last night! That’s enough for two more books.)

If you like the idea of students reading, go ahead and donate. It’s easy, I promise. Or find a friend to donate on your behalf. And while you’re at it, tell them that I’m still accepting Kindles! 

 I’m happy to announce that my students continue to choose excellent books to read on their Kindles. Here are the latest five books added to our classroom e-book library.

1. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

2. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison

3. East of Eden, by John Steinbeck

4. Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer

5. Matched, by Ally Condie

Thanks to generous donors, I was able to purchase these titles immediately. Thank you so much!

These books will now be available to all my students on our classroom’s 12 Kindles. And they’ll never get old, worn out, or lost!

If you’d like to donate books to our classroom e-book library (or know someone who does), please click on the ChipIn! button on the right sidebar.

I’m still frustrated after hearing that I’ll be teaching in two classrooms and sharing my own. (It’s now “our” room.)

Since April, after all, I’ve been reading tons of books and envisioning a  new English 9 class, classroom library, and 1,000,000 Word Challenge.

Now I have to figure out which parts of my vision I can keep and which parts need to wait another year.

Things to Let Go

1. The Reading Zone. This year, there won’t be room for comfy chairs, a rug, a little table, and a lamp. When students enter the room, they will see my colleague’s prominent desk instead of my reading nook. (My desk is tiny and in the opposite corner of the room.) Therefore, students will read primarily from their desks. I suppose I can try to find some oversized pillows so at least a handful of students can sprawl out on the floor. But the dedicated nook won’t be a reality this year.

2. A Full-Fledged Classroom Library. I like a minimalist, uncluttered environment, and I wanted my classroom to send a singular message: We read here. But now, the classroom is only half mine. Several of the bookshelves are filled with my colleague’s curriculum binders and materials. As I acquire more books, where will they go? When I teach in the other room, how will students choose books?

Things to Keep

1. The 1,000,000 Word Challenge. I won’t lie: Coming back to school has made me more nervous about unveiling my new project. I sense cynicism and disapproval from my colleagues. But I cannot let their questions deter me from my excitement. The ninth graders will read a lot this year, and they will enjoy reading, and their reading skills will improve! Instead of getting bogged down by and worrying about adults, I will spend my energy with my students.

2. My Experimental Mindset. I’ve reminded myself over and over that I’m consciously changing my practice this year. Sure, I’ve had success as a teacher in the past. But what I want to do this year is fundamentally different. My hope is that my students and I won’t just “play school” but rather will be involved in something real. How I am as a teacher — and my expectancies for myself and my students — is more important than physical space limitations. I hope to learn day by day. It will take patience and confidence.

At the beginning of the summer, I pledged that I would add 100 books to my classroom library in preparation for the One Million Word Challenge.

I’m happy to report that I’ve reached my goal! My friends and anonymous donors have generously given to my projects. DonorsChoose, especially in combination with Facebook, has helped me get the word out, and it feels like a little reading revolution has emerged.

It’s time to keep up the momentum, so I’m thinking of getting my students’ parents involved this year. I’m going to encourage families either (1) to donate a favorite book to my classroom library, or (2) to give $4.

Why $4?

Well, it turns out that there are many, many excellent teen books on Amazon that cost 1 cent plus $3.99 shipping and handling (sometimes less). A lot of books. Apparently, used book sellers set the price so low because they can make a small profit by undercutting the postage.

There are many things I like about the $4 Book Drive idea. First, it’s not a huge amount of money. It’s doable. If you give me a $5 bill, you’ll even receive a dollar back! Second, families want to feel like they’re contributing to their child’s education, especially given California’s budget cuts. It’s even better that a book can be reread over and over again by many students. Last, it doesn’t require too many complex steps. Sure, I can direct parents to my new classroom library wishlist on Amazon, but that’s unnecessarily complicated.

Of course, I can’t require my parents to donate to the $4 Book Drive. We’re a public school, after all. But imagine if the parents of just half of my 80 ninth graders decide to participate. That’s another 40 books, another shelf to my classroom library, another 2.5 million words to read.

After 10 years, our school is no longer offering the interdisciplinary World Studies class that used to combine World History and English 9.

This means that English 9 is a new course for me, and I’m excited.

One of the biggest challenges is that ninth graders say they don’t like to read, that reading is boring, and that it’s pointless. The bigger problem is that they’re entering our school two and three years below grade level, in general. No wonder why they don’t like reading! (I don’t like things I’m bad at.)

So I’m thinking of adopting a hybrid reading workshop approach, where students will get to choose a large part of what they read. Although a popular and established practice, reading workshop has only recently received a lot of press. And not all of it is positive.

But I’m going for it, which means that this summer, I’ve begun to build a classroom library. The point is to get really good books really close by so that students don’t have an excuse not to read.

It’s been fun to check out used bookstores and Salvation Army stores. But my favorite — and most productive — way of getting books has been through DonorsChoose. I keep things easy: I bundle up books 15 at a time, change my proposal just a bit to keep things new, and wait. It’s been amazing. All five of my proposals so far have been approved, usually within 10 days of posting. Even better, I seem to have an anonymous donor who likes me and who strikes on Sundays.

I can’t wait to get all these books in September and put them on my bookshelves. I also can’t wait to read some of these books. (The research says that students read much more if their teacher has read every title in the classroom library — a daunting prospect.)