Affective Dimensions of Reading

Growing up, reading was always a "big deal" in my house. Every night, my parents would read some sort of book, but my favorite was "Ferdinand", or my dad would sing Willie Nelson's "Mamma, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys". To this day, that song and that book are my absolute favorite. I was taught to read at a young age. I love discovering new things through books. Reading has always been fun for me and I consider myself to be a good reader. I love reading the newspaper. I know the newspaper doesn't seem all that interesting, but I love it. Growing up in the South, you kinda "adopt" family. Well, we adopted Mamaw and Papaw Underwood. Papaw and Mamaw would babysit me when my parents were at work. I learned so many things from them, but one was to enjoy reading the newspaper. My Papaw would pour a cup of black coffee, pull me up onto his knee, and we would read the paper together. Papaw smelled of old cars, animal feed, musk, and coffee. We would spend an hour every morning reading the paper together. To this day, I can't read a newspaper without thinking of Papaw.

I learned to love Western books from my grandpas and dad. They read Western book like they are going out of stock. :) When I was in middle school, I got hooked! I absolutely love reading Western books! Gone With The Wind is also one of my favorite books. I also love a good mystery book.

I can only think of a few times were reading wasn't enjoyable. Most of the times I remember are reading text books. It is a challenge for me to read text books. It seemed that textbooks were long, long, long, and boring. Whenever I would have teachers assign reading out of textbooks, I struggled! I dreaded it and would put it off till the last minute or not even read it. I also felt that some teachers didn't even discuss the reading from the textbook, reading the book was merely busy work. However, even though textbook reading isn't as enjoyable as a good Western, I don't detest reading a textbook. I have found that the last two semesters, the textbooks are more enjoyable because they relate to what I want to do.

Based on my own experiences, I want to include literature from all genres and all forms. I want to give my students an opportunity to explore their interests and develop new interests. Choices are going to be a huge factor in my classroom. Students will be able to read all sorts of books, texts, comics, etc in my classroom. I also plan to incorporate the textbook into my classroom. I don't want it to become busy work or a punishment. This will allow my students to see how interesting the text can be versus just something that they "have" to do for English class. Also, I think as students see how much reading can influence and shape their lives, that will foster good perceptions of themselves as readers. The more they enjoy reading, the better their perceptions will be. I hope to create an environment where reading is enjoyable, valued, informative, and motivational. I love reading and I hope to share that with my students.