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In my role as the 5th grade English Language Arts teacher, I鈥檓 responsible for preparing 80 culturally diverse students (many from low-income families) in the Seattle School District for a future of life-long reading. These students could borrow books from the library, but as researcher and author Angela Peery stated recently on the Podcast, Cult of Pedagogy, 鈥淭here is research that if physical books are at your fingertips, you鈥檙e more likely to pick them up and read.鈥 To support this, I lend books from my classroom library to our students to read at school and take home 鈥 so they can immerse themselves and have continuity of the text. It is also easier for students to find books that are at their specific reading level in our classroom library because I have them organized by reading level as well as genre. The issue is, I don鈥檛 have many books to offer these students with characters that look like them, that they can relate to, or that more broadly represent diverse perspectives. Therefore, my goal is to develop a classroom library of inspiring and compelling stories that have strong plots, rich language, and engaging vocabulary that are representative of my students, and appropriate to their reading levels. How can these students feel legitimized and worthy when my own classroom library puts them in the minority? One thing that I do have control over to help close the gap for our students furthest away from educational justice is to provide books that they are interested in and want to read, read, read! I have researched my book list from different credible websites such as Good Reads, Imagination Soup, as well as using suggestions from various professional developments provided in Seattle Public Schools. Thanks for considering my proposal, Caroline Phillips
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