I love today’s Nerdy Book Club post, Melissa Williamson’s “Tales of Adoration $ Appreciation.” In it, Melissa describes her passion for Edgar Allen Poe and how she successfully communicated that passion to her students. While as teachers we want to encourage our students to find their own passions as readers I feel there is a place to also model and share ours with them just as Melissa did with her students. She used her own enthusiasm, comics, visuals, public speaking, and more to excite her own students with the work of this classical writer.
I do something similar with Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. That is, through my excitement and the activities I do, my students become as infatuated with that book as I am. I read aloud the book, stopping along the way for my class to try out a quadrille, play a bit of indoor croquet, and explore various logic and mathematical tricks along the way. And we always end with a project. For years it was a new kid-illustrated and annotated version, then we did toy theater puppet shows, and last year we did book trailers.
I encourage other teachers to do this as well. What may appear old and tired can come alive with the personal passion of a creative and talented teacher!
educating alice 
Why thank you for the kind words about my blog post and for doing the same for Lewis Carroll! Sincerely, Melissa
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