Looking for nonfiction titles to supplement media classes?

One reasonable criticism of publication lab classes is that with so much emphasis on meeting deadlines and producing a product, there is little organized reading instruction. This may lie at the heart of English departments considering journalism classes "a step down" in intellectual rigor.

To combat this and, more importantly, expand students' use of language and structure, I organized small (no more than 8 in the group) nonfiction lit circles. They were perfect for those lab days when the next deadline seems a bit far off, and we had already picked apart the last deadline. Lit circles revealed new voices, helped disparate staff members get to know each other, and even inspired in-depth reporting.

I would buy 10 paperback copies of lit circle titles, in the expectation that they would eventually wear out, and be replaced with more timely pieces. But the best of those titles don't seem to lose their luster.

Here's the lit circle library I had acquired when I left the high school classroom in May, 2010:

In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle, by Madeline Blais (wonderful full-year reporting on a girls basketball team in Massachusetts)
Hiroshima, by John Hersey (short, powerful, demanding)
Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman (a damning extended essay on mass media and what it does to our minds -- written before the Internet exploded and yet still seems current)
School of Dreams, by Edward Humes (a year in the life of an extremely competitive California high school)
Praying for Sheetrock, by Melissa Faye Greene (wonderful true story of race and pride and betrayal and heroism)
Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi (challenging read, but an eye-opener to a wider world)
Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser (passionate, funny, horrifying)
In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote (still can scare, and still a model of narrative writing)
Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissinger (ostensibly about football, but really about race and class and education)
The Life of Reilly, by Rick Reilly (first collection of his Sports Illustrated columns, with the second being "Hate Mail From Cheerleaders")
The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell (every kid experiences little epiphanies while reading this)
My Losing Season, by Pat Conroy (a challenging read, on one level about a not-very-good college basketball team, with lots of additional levels about family and community)
Another Planet, by Elinor Burkett (a year in the life of a suburban Minneapolis high school)

Happy 400th birthday!

The King James Bible was published in 1611, and if you are wondering why those of us charged with defending the English language should care, check out http://tinyurl.com/299p7jo from the Jan. 9 New York Times.

I can't tell you how many times I have said to students, whether journalists or AP Lang, "You must be familiar with Shakespeare and the Bible to fully understand Western literature. Perhaps a 400th birthday will be the motivator some need to spend some time with both -- and I don't think it's an accident that Shakespear and the King James Bible are contemporaries.