Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish
This week’s Top Ten Tuesday post is fun because it prompts us to choose ten posts that describe us best and that we wish all readers (and potential readers) would read. I hope this post helps you get to know me as a teacher and reader! 
1. The importance of creating a classroom library was instilled by the best professor I’ve ever had, Dr. Susan Steffel. After some requests from a few Twitter followers, I wrote a post on how to create and manage a classroom library based on what I’ve been doing for the past five years that I’ve been teaching. I’m crazy passionate about my class library and adding to it on a regular basis, so I hope you gain something from that post!
2. Besides being known by students for all the books I read, they also know that I read to them every day at the beginning of the hour. Again, I learned this practice from Dr. Steffel. Reading out loud to my students is one of my favorite things to do, especially when we get to the good parts in a book or when a chapter ends with a cliffhanger; their reactions are priceless. I’ve had some major successes with books and some major hiccups, so I put together a list of my favorite books to read aloud to my high school students.
3. I love to find out what my students think about books/reading/covers/etc. so I try to poll them on different topics a few times throughout the year. One survey that my students really liked was this one about their opinions on book covers. I found out that they have strong opinions about book covers and could discuss them for a lengthy period of time.
Dr. Steffel and me at NCTE 2011
4. Censorship and book banning tends to get me fired up, so every year I put together a Banned Books Week display in my classroom. During that week I devote my blog to posting about different books on the list. I include where/why they were banned, my thoughts about it, and I also include what my students think. I teach a YA Lit class and one of the most popular project choices is the banned books project. Unfortunately, Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler has been banned, but fortunately it’s one of the most popular books in my classroom.
5. Another part of my YA Lit class is requiring my students to write book reviews for a couple of the books they read for their project. Within the last year or so I’ve started posting their book reviews on my blog. This is an example of a student book review that I loved.
6. My students and I love book trailers, so every Thursday I feature a book trailer or two on my blog. This is one of my students’ favorite book trailers, especially since I read this book to my YA Lit students. Every other day they’d make me show the trailer again to see if they understood another part of the trailer based on what we read.
7. I love verse novels. Every time I find out about a new one, I have to get my hands on it. Here’s a list of a few verse novels I recommend reading.
8. Starting this blog and reading other blogs has opened me up to so many books I probably would have never known about or thought about reading. A past Top Ten Tuesday post prompted us to write about books we’ve read because of other bloggers. Keep the recommendations coming, bloggers and readers!
9. Finding great books with guy appeal is really important to me because I’ve found that it’s usually harder to get my reluctant male students to read than it is getting my reluctant female students to read. Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach is one of my all-time favorite books with guy appeal.
10. This book surprised me and moved me to the point that it’s one of my absolute favorites. I really need to get a signed copy of it one of these days…