My name is Lisa Rodriguez, and I'm a K-5 teacher in an elementary school in Woodburn, Oregon.

The elementary school where I teach has an enrollment of 749 students. More than 28% are designated as living below poverty level, and 80% of our enrollment are Hispanic students, most of them English language learners. In the last Oregon Battle of the Books competition, I noaticed that the two teams of five students each in our school that made it to the semifinals were 100% White, native English speaking students. At the regional competition where 53 schools competed, I noticed that almost all the students were White. I decided at that point that I wanted our Lincoln Elementary School Oregon Battle of the Books (OBOB) team for 2014 to represent the true demographics of our school.

I selected five native Spanish speaking 4th grade students who are reading at a high level in English and enjoy reading, and I started coaching them immediately with the books that have been selected so far for the next OBOB.  The Oregon Battle of the Books competition is all in English. These are awesome, intelligent, wonderful, bilingual, SWEET kids! I meet with the team during my lunch twice a week, and I ask them questions about the books. and we also text one another questions about the book in the evenings and weekends. In fact, my husband thinks I’ve created little monsters because they text me constantly, “Give me a question!”

Three of the five students have computers with Internet, and we plan to have book meetings and discussions throughout the summer via videoconferencing, because I live 50 miles from school. I have met with their parents (only one of them is fluent in English), and they are very supportive of our mission.

I published a Wish List on Amazon to get help purchasing the books so that my students can have their own copy that they can highlight and make notes in. Also, they would be building their own home library.  More books will be added in May when the OBOB people finish selecting the books for the competition.

Here is the Amazon Wish list link://amzn.com/w/16A9KMW3DNF28