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Sarah's Bookshelves Live

Ep. 34: Books in the Classroom with Sara Hildreth (@FictionMatters)

Sarah's Bookshelves Live

Sarah Dickinson

Arts, Books

4.7 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2019

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In Episode 34, Sara Hildreth of Fiction Matters (also a high school English teacher at an all-girls school) talks about how she tries to encourage her students to love what they're reading, how she feels about classic and contemporary literature in the classroom, and…of course, shares her book recommendations!

This post contains affiliate links, through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!).

Highlights

  • Sara's passion of helping her students read books they're actually going to love
  • How bookstagram pushed her to think about how she could get her students to enjoy reading outside of school.
  • How much say Sara has in the books she includes on her curriculum.
  • The volume breakdown of classics vs. contemporary literature she teaches in her classes and whether she's happy with that number.
  • How Sara feels about the idea that there are certain books every single student needs to read.
  • Sara's favorite contemporary books that she teaches.
  • Contemporary books Sarah would love to teach, but can't for whatever reason.
  • Classics that Sara thinks should always be taught in classrooms.
  • Classics Sara thinks should be eliminated from school curricula.
  • Whether Sara and I actually did our high school reading.

Sara's Book Recommendations

Two OLD Books She Loves

Two NEW Books She Loves

One Book She DIDN'T Love

One NEW RELEASE She's Excited About

Other Books Mentioned

Other Links

About Sara

Blog | Instagram 

Sara is the bookstagrammer and blogger behind @fictionmatters. She teaches high school English at an all-girls school and lives in Denver with her husband and their puppy, Mr. Bingley.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live. I'm Sarah of the blog Sarah's Bookshelves. Each week I'm

0:15.1

talking with one bookish guest about two old books they love, two new books they love, one book they don't love, and one new

0:22.8

release they're excited about. We're going to get real and sometimes a little bit snarky about

0:27.5

all things books. This is a new podcast, so if you like it, I'd really love your support.

0:33.1

Please spread the word to your reader friends, subscribe to the show, and rate and review it wherever

0:37.9

you listen to podcasts. Let's get rolling. Hey, everyone, welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live. I've got a full

0:45.0

length episode for you today, and my guest is Sarah Hildreth, also known on Instagram as at Fiction

0:52.2

Matters. In addition to her vibrant bookstagram presence, Sarah teaches

0:56.7

English at an all-girls high school in Colorado. She's taught American-lit, British-lit,

1:01.9

African-American-lit, Shakespeare, women in literature, and AP language and composition. Sarah also has

1:08.3

her MA in literature from Georgetown University, which is when she started sharing her reading on Instagram.

1:14.3

Y'all, she's a legit reader with a degree and everything, and that is something that I don't have.

1:18.7

So I'm thrilled to talk to Sarah today.

1:20.4

Back in July, Sarah contacted me about participating in a series she was doing to coincide with the launch of her new blog, which is called

1:28.7

Fiction Matters Books.com. Go check it out. And the series is called How to Make a Reader. The series

1:35.2

focuses on inspiring teachers to make content choices that will help students learn more about

1:40.6

themselves as readers and encourage lifelong reading. And I have thoughts on this topic

1:45.3

from a student's perspective. So this prompted an email exchange between Sarah and myself,

1:50.5

and I thought it would make a really interesting podcast episode. So here we are. Welcome, Sarah.

1:55.3

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. And this is the first other Sarah I've had on the show

2:00.1

before. No way. It's such a common name. I know. And there's going to be another. And this is the first other Sarah I've had on the show before. No way. It's such a common

2:02.3

name. I know. And there's going to be another one coming up soon. So you'll only hold that title for a

...

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