Send my book lovers to New York City! 

Getting teens to fall in love with reading is just as challenging as herding cats. My students think that reading a long text means reading a long text message from their friends. By the time students enter my classroom in the 9th grade, their love of reading (if it ever existed in the first place) is completely diminished because the gift of choice in what they read has been taken from them. If you couple that with the fact that many of my students are English language learners or do not have the money or resources to visit a library or own many books, and you have a category 5 literary emergency. 

One of my amazing colleagues just got funding for a small school library (that's right - we haven't had a library and many of our students enter college without ever having stepped foot in a library), but having a library doesn't necessarily mean that kids are lining up to check out the small stacks of books. We need to jump start our students' imaginations, curiosity, and brain cells which is why we need YOU! 

With the launch of our library in the 2017-2018 school year, we are implementing a school wide competition where students can earn points a variety of ways to try and win a trip to New York City at the end of the year to visit The New York Times, The New York Public Library, The Morgan Library and Museum, The Strand Bookstore, and the Housing Works Bookstore and Cafe. The goal is to give them incentive to complete literary and artistic projects throughout the school year to then be rewarded by a trip to visit literary landmarks. 

Students may earn points in a variety of ways such as completing scavenger hunts in libraries around our city, reading books and making promotional posters to engage other students, reading a classic novel and writing a short story to modernize it, hosting book circles and events in our library here at school, writing poetry, competing in book and character trivia through social media, etc. With a variety of ways in which to earn points, we hope to attract students who want to engage with literature in more artistic ways than simply reading a book and writing a paper on it. 

At the end of the year, the top 4 students who have earned the most points will win the trip to New York City to be led by myself and our librarian. Should we receive more funding than needed, we will continue to add students to the trip. We realize that this is a large price tag to send a few students, but the literary competition will reach 650 students all year long. The lasting effects of having students engage with a variety of texts are priceless. 

Thank you for your consideration! Now, go forth and read a book. 

Back Up Plan