Classroom Library

For the past five years, I've scavenged yard sales, retiring teachers' classrooms, library closeouts and used book stores to build up my extensive classroom library of young adult literature. I also invite my students to donate books they've read to the library for my future students, and award them extra credit points for doing so.

I have a library sign-out sheet, hanging on a clipboard on the peg board where I keep my clipboards for each class. There the students write their names, the book title, and the date as they check out their books. They can then take the books home with them until they're finished. Because I require them to read for at least 30 minutes each night and record their reading on a "reading log," these books prevent students from making the excuse "I didn't have anything to read."

The shelves are stocked with a diverse array of titles and authors, from what I consider "classic" children's/young adult literature to more recent works. I buy and shelve any book that will keep my students' attention - so long as they're school appropriate. I learned the hard way that I must carefully police what my students donate. Two years ago a student brought in books from his mother's bookshelf. While they were popular among my students, I got into a bit of hot water when an angry father called to complain the book his daughter was reading contained inappropriate adult material. *Oops!*

I've never been one for censorship, but I've also never been one to overstep a parent's wishes for his or her child. Since then, I've gathered up any books that a parent may find controversial, but which still hold literary value and may capture my students' interests, shelved them on my professional bookshelf behind my desk; I now require a parent permission slip for those books to be signed out.