As part of my summer “vacation” (for the cynics out there, it’s about 2 weeks… not sure where the notion of teachers getting 3 months vacation comes from, but I’m not buying it as I enter my 6th year of teaching), I’m re-reading the books we’ve asked our 7th graders to read in the coming year.

This process includes some new books for me like The Maze Runner and Touching Spirit Bear as well as old favorites like The Crucible, Red Badge of Courage, Killer Angels, Tom Sawyer, To Kill a Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 451, Doctorow’s Little Brother and I, Robot. I’m also in the midst of the two required readings that the faculty was asked to read over the summer, including The Global Achievement Gap (good book so far) and Daniel Pink’s Drive.

I’ve made the conscious decision to read all of these texts on my iPhone/iPad using the Kindle app (wanted to go with iBooks but the store just isn’t there yet). I have a couple of good reasons for doing this…

* Just as the gaming industry is seeing a complete sea change towards mobile platforms like the App Store, I’m expecting that books and texts will be heading that way shortly. BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) won’t be some catchy new-fangled expression of progressive schools in five years… it will be a necessity as we continue to micro-chunk our models of information consumption and production. I’m a big believer in the Kindlefication of texts. As teachers (especially those of us who teach reading with books), we need to be cognizant of the literacy style needed to navigate these brave new waters.

* Convenience: I don’t have to carry 10 books in my bag when my iPad or iPhone will suffice.

* Markup and data: Making notes and marginalia are intrinsically part of the reading experience for me. Having access to my notes and highlights across my iDevices and/or a web browser is so valuable. It takes the fuss out of reading and makes reading much more enjoyable for me. I know others will argue on the point of marginalia with me… and yes, I know my medieval literature and how important script and syntax are compared to bits, however we live in a bit, not quill, world.

One thing I’ve unexpectedly bumped into time and again as I make my way through this sea of books and texts is that more and more people are using the social highlighting feature available on the Kindle platform. As you can see in the image above, 70 people thought that passage about schools being obsolete was important and highlighted it. That made it stand out to me and I did the same. That’s implicitly powerful for me as a reader.

“But Sam!” you cry, “if students can see what other people say are the important bits of a book, won’t they just focus on those and skip the rest? Why spoonfeed them with social highlights and Sparknotes? Won’t you please think of the children?!?”

Trouble is, I am thinking of the children. Of course it is human nature to skip to the highlighted portions of a book or text or movie that others say are the important parts. 4/5 Dentists agree that Crest will make your teeth whiter, after all. However, it is our job as teachers (and adults) to push kids harder and to make them stop, pause and question why this chunk might be important to a community of individuals and who they may be based on that highlight. The added layer of social highlighting presents a new layer of literacy that must be addressed, even though it goes back to a very old lizard-brain part of humanity.

So, even though I’m reading The Crucible again for the fifth or sixth time, I’m reading it through a different lens when I come to these social highlights and pondering the notion of audience reception and authorial intent as I move along. That’s powerful. Let’s tap into that as teachers, students and learners.