I started this blog two years ago as a demo for my high school students. They were asked to use their blogs as a way to document and share reviews of their independent reading. My hope was that they would create an online dialogue around books. That first experiment was fairly successful, as the students' blogs themselves can attest.

My own blogging was a less successful enterprise (the two year gap in posts speaks for itself). I am naturally an introvert, leery to put myself out there in the vastness of the web. I am a busy professional, parent, wife, daughter, sister, friend. Who has enough time to read, let alone write about my reading?

At the same time, in these two years, I have also made a major transition from teaching high school students to teaching future teachers. And if there is a mantra that must permeate teacher ed, it is "walk the walk." So here is the official relaunch of my blog.

The original concept remains (at least for now). This will primarily be a space where I document my reading. The major shift is that I intend to broaden my notion of reportable reading. While I was preaching the idea that all reading was valuable, I still let my bias toward certain types of "literary" books guide my original concept for the blogging assignment.

The importance and power of reading takes on many facets in my daily life. I read with my daughter, Beatrice, almost every night now. I read the education news voraciously, and try to keep up on my professional journals and book titles regarding teaching English as well. Those non-fiction forays are a key element of my reading, and hopefully this modeling will benefit my pre-service teachers. And yes, I still can't help but pick up the latest hot young adult novel, or the occasional Booker Prize winner. So in the spirit of exploring and expanding my repertoire of teaching and technology tools--let blogging (re)commence.