I’ve been hearing and reading a lot of negativity about New Year resolutions in the past week. As a high school English teacher, my goal is to encourage reading. Here’s why I’ll be keeping track of the books, stories, and poems my students read in 2018:

Any goal that causes a person to practice will become a skill, and continued practice will eventually result in the development of a habit. In other words, if setting an arbitrary book goal causes a person to practice reading consistently, they may eventually become readers. By being readers, they have a 100% greater opportunity to become critical readers or readers-for-pleasure than someone who doesn’t read at all.

Congrats to those who reached their book goals this year and to those who are about to set new goals for 2018!