As part of an independent reading unit at our school, we have explicitly instructed students to judge books by their covers. In fact, looking at the front and then reading the back cover are steps 2 and 3 out of five when deciding what book to begin next.I began to wonder if subconsciously we are teaching our students to judge based on appearance by giving them this quick protocol for selecting a text. Then I started thinking about how often I do the same thing with my own classroom.
