This two-part study is designed to help teachers accomplish three basic and essential things:

1. Launch the course’s independent reading project. The sessions in Part 1 are dedicated to helping teachers lead students through essential pieces of this work, including finding new and interesting texts to read, building “Books I’d Like to Read” lists, and setting goals.

2. Re-orient students to close reading and text-based interpretive work. In Part 2, students will work closely with two texts: “The Girl Who Raised Pigeons,” a short story by Edward P. Jones, and “The Harvest,” a short story by Amy Hempel.

3. Create classroom cultures in which students participate as active members of a community of readers. The work and interactions of the two parts of this study are specifically designed to help teachers provide students with regular opportunities to share and collaborate, to think, and discuss texts. This means that students will have opportunities not only to read, but to read and think better due to the frequency and quality of their regular interactions around independent reading and careful text-based work.