A. D. Johnston teacher awarded for launching book club

By LARRY HOLCOMBE

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Bessemer - A.D. Johnston High School English and Spanish teacher Micaela Zelinski said she loves a good book and maybe the only thing better is sharing it with others.

She's particularly drawn to contemporary young adult literature with the hope that she'll find something she can incorporate in her classroom or with the school's relatively new Book Club.

This is Zelinski's second year teaching. Last year, she launched an after-school Book Club. She said the "small but tight-knit" group read a variety of good books, starting with "The Walled City."

"It's an awesome book by Ryan Graudin. It deals with the issue of human trafficking which the students talked about wanting to learn more about because ... it's really prevalent in every area you look," Zelinski said. "You can see it happening in small towns, big towns, a little bit of everywhere. It was a really good piece. It's a fictional piece, but they got a lot out of it educationally, too. We had a lot of great discussions from it."

Currently, the club is reading "A Monster Calls," by Patrick Ness, and there are many more good reads to come ahead, said Zelinski.

The Book Club meets on a weekly basis and the reading is done on their own time, she said.

Along the way, Zelinski also helped the students form a Reading Club that reaches out to read to students at Washington Elementary School.

"We've gone over to Washington and paired up with different classes and spent some time reading with the students," she said. "We're going back next week and hope to make it a more regular thing."

Zelinski, who grew up in Hartford, Wis., said she enjoyed when older kids came to read to them when she was in elementary school. "I just thought it was the coolest thing on earth. It's good for the younger students to see older students appreciate reading."

The creation and advancement of the Book Club and Reading Club caught the eye of Data Image, a downstate company aimed at helping educators with audio-visual technology, and Zelinski was awarded its November Teacher of the Month citation.

She was nominated by Bessemer Superintendent Dave Wineburner for her "tireless efforts to promote literacy and ensure that all students are subjected to quality reading."

Zelinski said she loves to see the students reading and hopes the school will continue to hold more DEAR weeks. "It stands for Drop Everything and Read. We did it once last year and just did it a couple weeks ago and would like to do more.

"For the week, every student brings with them some sort of reading material. At some point in the day we'll announce it's DEAR time and for 10 to 20 minutes they'll get to read whatever they want to read.

"That's been really cool and I hope we can continue that."

Zelinski holds a teaching degree from Northern Michigan University. Besides reading, she said she and her husband, Eli, also a teacher at ADJ, enjoy the outdoors of the Northwoods.