High School Reading Challenge
Through Heading Home’s collaboration with the Kelley Institute for Social Impact, Bloomington students explored issues of poverty and homelessness.
To help destigmatize homelessness and poverty, Heading Home of South Central Indiana partnered with Indiana University’s Kelley Institute of Social Impact (KISI) on a reading challenge for Bloomington North and Bloomington South high school students.
The books featured in this challenge were: “The Soloist” by Steve Lopez, “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls, “The Pursuit of Happyness” by Chris Gardner, “Evicted” by Matthew Desmond, “Poverty by America” by Matthew Desmond, “Winterfolk” by Janel Kolby, and “Sorta like a Rockstar” by Matthew Quick.
To participate in the challenge, students were required to complete two books with an accompanying personal reflection for each book. Upon doing that, students received a Morgenstern’s gift card, a Heading Home T-shirt, and were then entered in a raffle to earn prizes. These incentives were funded through a grant that Heading Home received as part of the KISI partnership.
On Feb. 9, Heading Home staff met with Bloomington South students to reflect on their experiences with the books, as well as to raffle off prizes.
In their reflections, students shared their learning moments, opinions, and highlights from their reading.
In her reflection, Bloomington South student Rebekah Arnold said: “Evicted showed a side of housing problems that I had never really understood on such a personal level, which is an important thing for everyone to understand in order to make changes for the better.”
Another Bloomington South student, Noah Lasher, shared his experience reading “Poverty by America” by Matthew Desmond. “Desmond really forces the reader to face some hard truths about themselves in some ways and it truly has informed my perspective on this issue,” Noah said.
A special thanks to Kristin Wintin, co-chair of the Bloomington South English Department, for facilitating this reading challenge.
Later this year, Heading Home hopes to visit Bloomington North to have a similar reflection session and raffle off additional prizes.
The high school reading challenge was one of several projects that stemmed from the partnership with Kelley Institute of Social Impact (KISI). To learn more, click here.
