Learning Log 4

After this week's reading,  I find myself thinking about what draws me into reading a book for my recreational reading.  First of all, I look at the genre of the book; my favorite genres are modern fantasy, historical fiction, and biographies.  I like to read books that are a part of a series, and I have several series that I have finished or am currently waiting for new installments.  Then, I look at the cover, the size of the book, and the blurb on the back or the inside cover of the book.  I like covers that grab my attention; some pictures on the covers of books that have grabbed my attention have had fanciful beasts or characters or something amusing that caught my eye.  I love to read books with page ranges from 500-1000 pages as I know that this will last me about a week.  If the blurb about the book does not entice me into reading it, then I replace the book back on the rack and forget about it.  This is what gets me started on reading the book; however, I will quit reading the book if it does not grab me in the first two chapters.  Before I started back to school, I could easily read forty books in a year.  However, for the most part now I read for informational purposes through textbooks and journal articles that are assigned reading, and I am probably reading more than the forty books per year.  In between semesters, I read at least two books for enjoyment; whereas, during the semesters I might read only one to two books for own entertainment.

As a future educator, it is essential to remember what motivates me to read as this will aid me in finding what will motivate my students to read.  Students need to understand what a genre is and what the different genres are.  When students find a genre that interests them, they will find more enjoyment in their personal reading.  I like the idea of having myself and my students individually keep reading notebooks for the school year.  This will help all of us to make a plan for our reading as we will keep a list of books that we have read, the different genres of the books, the books that we want to read in the future, and we can write entries in response to books that we have read.