Thursday, June 20, 2013

Must read Hispanic novels - Could these inspire my students to read more?

I am a big proponent of reading. I believe that reading, in any language, helps you to learn immense amounts of vocabulary and grammar structures without a single lesson or quiz. I am an avid reader myself, and I am always looking for new books for my classroom. I have begun my class library with shorter readers which the students can work through and comprehend. However, one of the challenges is that these readers are often abridged and can be a little choppy and confusing. The other issue the students have with these books are that they are boring. It is difficult to find interesting reading material which is on a doable level for the students. Even the mystery stories lack the plot depth that they crave. But seriously, in a 75-90 page reader, how much can you really expect?

Like many of you, I spend a good portion of my time over the summer trolling the Internet for great ideas and resources. While doing that today, I found a great list of 50 must read Hispanic books. Sadly, the majority of which I have never read. So, I am committing to read them all and then make them a part of my school library for the students to read. If you have any thoughts on which I should start with, let me know!

Maybe I am underestimating them, maybe if the novel was interesting enough, they would plod through the beginning to get the knowledge to make it through the book. I am going to finally really begin the SSR in class, and maybe some will go for the tougher books, not just the easy books! We shall see.....if I can say nothing else about my students, I will say that they often surprise me with the amount of work they will do if something sparks their interest.

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