Shea’s Comments (group member since Nov 08, 2020)

Shea’s comments from the My Pathway to Literacy group.

UNDERGRAD:
Something interesting about going to college was that my love for reading plummeted. This probably had something to do with the copious amounts of textbooks I was required to work through and the lack of motivation to read those let alone anything else. After my first two years, however, I started finding myself in the public library and working in a couple public school libraries and that introduced the new brand of YA that exists. It made me sad for young intersectional Shea who was only able to read about anxiety, emotions, relationships, and growing up from straight white boys. So I started on a mission to read the new YA books that younger Shea never got to. In comes Dante and Aristotle Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Simon and the Homosapien Agenda, The Hate U Give, and several others. I am still working through this list because I keep finding new ones; plus, as a future educator I want to have this list in my back pocket to show the new generation of readers that they can be represented too.

GRAD SCHOOL:
This is where I'm at currently and the reason for my Pathway to Literacy. Going through my old lists felt like going through old photographs. I remembered who I was when I read those books as well as thoughts I haven't thought in a long time. I'm re-excited by books and want to bring that excitement into my teaching in the future.

MIDDLE SCHOOL:
Middle school marked a pivotal literacy moment for me as it was when I took Advanced Reading. This class was the ISH. Not only were there periods of each unit where we got to pick from SEVERAL books, whichever ones we wanted from the list, but I was also introduced to so many incredible books. This was the class that introduced the Hunger Games and the Maze Runner while simultaneously providing me options like The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and It's Kind of a Funny Story. Yes books could be entertaining and incredible and turn into movies (WHAT?!) but also they could be real and talk about things I went through. They taught me how to empathize and advocate for others. They made me only ever want to read more.

It's also important to note that I included my first year of junior high in this group as well, but only because my district had a weird structure where freshmen were in junior high with 8th grade, which in itself was separate from middle school (6 and 7th). Too confusing.

HIGH SCHOOL:
Ahhh high school. This is when I felt every emotion so hard it hurt and books were an escape for me. I began reading books that made me feel smart and cultured for someone growing up in Central Wisconsin. They made me feel less alone as a POC in a white-centric school. They made me aspire to become a writer in my own right and stay involved in creative writing until I graduated. Looking back this is when I appreciated books the most and enjoyed reading the most. I was friendly with my school librarian I was there so much and went through most Book Club books on our shelves. I wish to love reading as much as I did in high school and I hope I can find that spark again soon.

CHILDHOOD BOOKSHELF:
There are a few books on my childhood bookshelf that I love but the top three I recall fondly as bedtime stories with my mom. I own all three from my actual childhood bookshelf and cherish them all to this day. The first is Guess How Much I Love You which inspired young Shea to always respond to my mom with "THHHHHHIIIIIIIIIISSSSS MUCH". The second is the Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh. My nursery as a baby was decorated as Winnie the Pooh and my Aunt even painted me a mural of the characters. This was one of the first books we could work through night after night as it was split into stories. The last of the three is I Love You Stinky Face which is about a child coming up with the most outlandish scenarios and seeing if his mom would love him EVEN THEN. "Would you love me if I was an alien??" and of course she would....

ELEMENTARY BOOKSHELF:
The books I read in elementary school started becoming chapter books. This was when I learned how much I loved reading and became beyond invested in characters. I remember reading Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life then talking my mom's ear off about it, gushing over how much I loved Jeremy Fink, and then refusing to throw away any key I ever came across.

This was also the time where I was introduced to the Spiderwick Chronicles. These were INCREDIBLE. I loved every book. This is when I was introduced to genre of fantasy, specifically faeries and fay, which fueled many of book choices until high school. These books also sparked a new favorite author -- Holly Black -- whose website I had bookmarked on our computer and whose books I read relentlessly until college.