Saturday, January 17, 2009

I am a 21st Century Reader

In the Choice Literacy newsletter last week, Brenda shared a link to the website What Should I Read Next. This website cracked me up. I need one more way to figure out what to read next? Give me a break.

My adult reading these days is all iPod "reading" on the commute to and from school. I just finished listening to Zorro (Isabel Allende) for book club and now I'm catching up on podcasts of This I Believe, This American Life, and the Princeton Review Vocab Minute. (In another post I'll tell you about an amazing connection between two of these podcasts.) I just "borrowed/ripped" the cds of Son of a Witch (Gregory Maguire) and The Middle Place (Kelly Corrigan) for future book club meetings.

In the mail this week was yet another box of 2008's to add to the avalanche of Notables Nominees that I MUST read, along with all the other nominees that I need to be reading, and re-reading.

Also in the mail this week was a box from Amazon -- books I WANT TO read to stay current with my students. (In another post I'll tell you about the Flip video that also came this week.)

I just spent two hours reading email, Tweets, blogs (Poetry Friday only -- I'm hopelessly behind in regular blog reading), The English Companion Ning, and Goodreads updates.

On the top of my bedside pile of books right now is Billy Collins' new volume of poetry, Ballistics. If I'm lucky, I can read one or two poems before I fall asleep at night.

My basket of magazines and professional journals is overflowing. I am months behind in all of them.

We just decided not to renew The New York Times Book Review print edition at $91 per year because we no longer get anywhere near that much worth out of it and we almost never get book recommendations from it anymore.

After I finished cracking up about the thought of going to a website to find out what I should read next, and after I did the run-down of all my reading options, I realized that I am a 21st Century Reader. I read print (books, magazines, newspapers), I read digital (online newsletters with crack-me-up links, blogs, Tweets, Nings, etc.), and I read audio. I read children's books, adult books, professional books and articles, poetry, reviews, news, and more. I "manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information."

I am a 21st Century Reader. Are you?

Edited to add: Angela at The Cornerstone Blog sure is. Go read her post.

4 comments:

  1. I think you covered it all there! And summed it up very nicely. I'm an author not a reviewer, but just swap out those two activities - I can understand the amount and level of reading you are trying to accomplish!

    L. Diane Wolfe
    www.circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com
    www.spunkonastick.net
    www.thecircleoffriends.net

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  2. I am! I like the way you phrased that. Makes me feel less guilty for abandoning traditional ways of reading. I just posted about this on my blog...seems our thoughts on the matter are similar.

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  3. I am trying to keep up!!I am often overwhelmed with how I am going to get to it all with the many hats I am wearing. I often have to prioritize before I synthesize!!! I am off to read Angela's post now.

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  4. I totally agree with this. This leads me to the next question. How does the way my reading is changing impact how I teach literacy to second grades who will hopefully become readers like me?

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