Response to Pernille Ripp

 This week I listened to the practitioner text Passionate Readers The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child by Pernille Ripp. I resonated with this text because Ripp addresses independent reading in its challenges as she has experienced it in her teaching career. She offers her own insight as to how even in the strictest of environments, we can still make independent reading a priority. This practitioner text complements the work that Buehler wrote and is deeply based in the research of many well known educators such as Penny Kittle, Donalyn Miller, Kylene Beers, and more. While listening to this text I was challenged to think about my first year of teaching and I was reminded by Pernille Ripp that the creation of YA pedagogy is a self reflective ever-changing process. I approached this reading in the way that Ripp wants readers to by thinking about the challenges of time and purchased curriculums and what I can do to uphold my belief of independent reading in my classroom.
Ripp describes the importance of being a “Reading Role Model” for our students in order to inspire reading outside of the classroom (Pernelle, 2018, p.25). This means thinking and having a rationale prepared for a conversation with my colleagues and maybe even administration about making time for independent reading. As a first year teacher, this will look like asking for ten minutes of silent and sustained reading to take place on Fridays. I am going to start off small in the hopes of building up to five days a week with ten minutes dedicated to independent reading.
One of the most interesting aspects of Ripp’s book was the section about physical space. I think about my favorite reading spot on my front porch and how it feels to be completely lost in a book, because I feel comfortable and immersed in a book. I want to create an environment in my own classroom that welcomes reading. Ripp talks about the ways that she created a choice seating environment by allowing students to read wherever they felt comfortable. Whether that was on the floor, beanbags, yoga balls, or the hallway. I plan to implement this in my own classroom by having a reading nook with comfortable bean bag chairs, a rug, and fluffy pillows.
Finally, I considered my classroom library and how I will go about using an organization system this coming year. Ripp talks about her own experiences with a classroom organization system and through trial and error how she has created one that gives students agency in the reading community. She talks about an organization system that is sorted in plastic bins based on labels that her students come up with based on genre, sub genres, and author names. I love the idea of incorporating my students into the organization of the classroom library and I think that it is a great way to engage students with the reading community. Ripp talks a little about digital organization systems, but she highlights the fact that every teacher and classroom is different. In my own classroom, I plan to use an old IPhone and have students check out YA novels from the app Classroom Organizer. This will be tedious on my end but I like the idea of having my students interact with technology. It may be a segway into using other apps such as Good Reads :D




References
Ripp, P., & Miller, D. (2018). Passionate readers: The art of reaching and engaging every child. New York, NY: Routledge.