Book Share is an outreach program of the Arizona Senior Academy coordinated by Kristin Murray and Megan Lotti of the Vail Innovation Center Blended Learning Middle School and Don Gilzinger of the Arizona Senior Academy. The program has succeeded in bringing students and ASA members together for more than ten years. As Kristin Murray says:
“The Book Share Program with Academy Village has been one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever taken part in as a teacher. Not only are beautiful relationships created between our students and the volunteers, the extension of the classroom learning is unsurpassed. Every year students tell me that was their favorite activity and they wish they could do it again.”
Book Share is a reading program that involves one-on-one interactions between an individual middle school student and an ASA partner. Each pair selects a book to read, analyze, and study over a six-week period. Each of the two partners keeps and exchanges a weekly journal with entries that focus on aspects of content, style, plot, and interpretation of the story.
The goals of Book Share are for students to develop an understanding of how an important work of fiction or nonfiction unfolds from authors to readers and to increase the students’ enthusiasm for reading and composition.
In addition to weekly exchanges of journals, Villagers travel twice to the VIC to meet with their Book Share partners. The final Book Share meeting includes a visit by the student partners to Academy Village for a luncheon in the dining room hosted by Villagers as well as a tour of the entire Academy Village campus.