Give a student a great book . . .

and get the hell out of their way.

That has been what I've been doing with my first block College Comp 2 class as they are a week in to their Sticky-Note Book Report project.

I asked them to jot down two topics they enjoy (non-fiction) and one they absolutely hate and do not want to read about at all.

From that list, I select a book (sometimes two if the both are short) for them to read, complete a Sticky-Note Book Report on, give a book talk, and then write a research paper on.

Here is what this semester's class is reading.

Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner's Freakonomics.

Guy Kawasaki's Enchantment.

Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum's That Used to be Us.

Stephen Johnson's The Invention of Air.

James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me.

Mary Pipher's Reviving Olphelia

Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture and Mitch Albom's Tuesday's With Morrie

Elie Wiesel's Night and Day

Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild

Sir Ken Robinson's Out of Our Minds.

Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City

Here is a link to a little assignment I had my last semester class do on the texts they read.

These kids have absolutely started to devour their books. I have given them a couple free reading days in class - and though I try to have them stay in the room (I always tell them that I want to try to channel all of our cognitive energies while we read so that Mr. Zutz, whose office is right below my room, can be extra creative and innovative that hour), but they argue that they read better in the comfy chairs of the media center. So I relent and join them down there as they . . . read. Can you believe that Bauerlein?