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Challenge 9 – Your “Life as a Reader”

Dean Shareski, on his blog post “Student and Teacher Blogging that Succeeds,” expresses the obvious, but sometimes hidden truth for novice bloggers:
Blogging is about writing, but it begins with reading…Teachers recognize that in order to be a good writer you have to read good writing. Yet when it comes to blogging, most want to write immediately and sit back and wait for the world to pay attention. It won’t happen. Provide as much time for your students to read blogs as write.

Challenge 9 consists of creating a a bullet list and short narrative that captures your connections, reflections, and thoughts about yourself as a reader. It is a metacognitive exercise of putting pen to paper or finger to keyboard and not lifting your hands for 5/10/15 minutes or until you have emptied your mind completely and you can’t think of anything else to add.

Here are a few questions to get you started thinking about your life as a reader: 

  • Who are you as a reader?
  • Who influenced you as a reader?
  • How have you grown/changed as the reader you were as a child? Adolescent? Young adult?
  • What are your favorite genres? Authors? Why?
  • What books can be found on your nightstand? In you professional Library in line to be read next?
  • What books have accompanied you along your life journey? Have any taken on a different meaning as you have grown older?
  • The world around us has changed tremendously. How has this change affected your reading habits?
  • Are are reading habits changing with the opportunities of online reading and ebooks?

Follow these steps to complete this challenge:

  1. Create your Life as a Reader list after thinking about your responses to the questions above.
  2. Write a new blog post: a) upload your image (tech written list or photo of handwritten list) and place as desired in your post using media embedding feature, b) include a reflective narrative as to why your list particularly resonates with you, and c) upload one or more photos of yourself reading through the ages (e.g., as a child, young adult, recently).
  3. Title, save, and publish your post.

After you have completed your challenge to create a My Life as a Reader blog post, please include the URL link to your post with embedded list in the Leave a Reply comment section below to share with us and your documenting community. Check back regularly to see what others have posted!

Added Amplification: Tweet out or share on Instagram the link to your My Life as a Reader blog post, or write an explanation for the challenge and your generated list and attach your list image. Either way, be sure to include the hashtags #documenting4learning, #mylifeasareader, and #DLBloggingChallenge9.

Here are a few examples of “My Life as a Reader” blog posts:

Go to Blogging Challenge 10

Back to the Blogging Challenge – Overview