Growing up in Philadelphia, the public schools barely had text books let alone classroom libraries. Every once in a while, some teachers would use their own money to buy a book and read it to the entire class. Those books would never stay in the class, instead the books would go home with its owner. As stated in my “Introduction to Urban Novels” post, independent reading wasn’t encouraged very much. The local library was almost always empty and always viewed as a place that kids hated to go to. So, for many years I went without a classroom library. Until the 6thgrade when we were exposed to a classroom library in music. It was a very popular library in the class because it provided stories behind the music and artists that we were learning about. Learning about the other side of music made the songs that much more interesting.
I want to build a classroom library that has stories behind the story in my social studies class. Having input from the characters making history or the people behind them makes a subject that more interesting. It also helps with kids learning to develop good research s
kills before actually doing research. Classroom libraries are a must in our schools.