Mellow pop music plays in the background as the sound of hushed whispers flow through the air. Books opened and pencils scratching, critical reading is an English class that always works hard.

Critical Reading is a single-semester English class for seniors at WEGO. The class follows a very set schedule: Mondays the class participates in a “hot topic” debate, Tuesday to Thursday the students conference with the teacher or work independently, and at the end of the week, the entire class joins together for current event discussions on Friday.

Students taking the class must read 100 pages from their current book every week, which may sound daunting, but the class is structured in a way so that they have plenty of time to complete their assignments; many actually read more than 100 pages a week because they enjoy what they are reading so much.

Another key difference? Students in Critical Reading are allowed to choose what they read.

Mary Fremeau, Critical Reading teacher, begins class each day by announcing important due dates coming up. She encourages students to write down this information in their planners.  Then, she hands out any papers students need for class that day.

On work days, students have the option to read their book of choice, work on prep for their weekly debate in class, complete a journal entry, or prepare a current event for the upcoming discussion on Friday. All students in Critical Reading are required to read a book; however, that book can be chosen by the students entirely.

“I wanted to get into reading and this class gave me the time to read,” senior Dayana Castro said.

Each week, students research current events happening globally from the past seven days and prepare to present it on “current event Fridays” in their small groups.

Fremeau sits and listens to senior Melissa Ramirez as she gives a debrief about everything that has happened in her book since their last conference.

“The one thing I loved the most were the conferences we had with the teacher, she personalized every conference we had and helped me discover the love I have for reading,” Ramirez said.

The class also works with Learning Resource Center Director Carol Naughton, to prepare book trailers. Naughton joins the class for a period each semester to talk about the book trailer project, and the resources the students have to create with. The LRC (Learning Resource Center), offers many aids for students for completing the project.

“Mrs. Naughton heads up our final exam for Critical Reading which is a book trailer of the students’ favorite book of the semester. Students create their own 60-90 second video on WeVideo over the course of two weeks, and the presentation of the book trailers comes with a viewing party on final exam day. It’s amazing to see what my kids create! Mrs. Naughton walks the kids through all the intricacies of WeVideo and is a huge source of knowledge for the technical side of the book trailers,” Fremeau said.

On Fridays, students sit in randomly-assigned groups and share the current event they researched previously in the week. The students must share where there research was found, what they learned from it, and a drawing or picture to represent the story.

“Every week we did debates and current events, which seemed intimidating at first, but Mrs. Fremeau made it a safe space for everyone to share their opinions,” Castro said.

For Fremeau, these discussions are a highlight.

“I truly enjoy current events Fridays. I am so impressed with the students as they listen diligently to one another in class. I love hearing them learn about seven additional news articles from the week, just from listening to their peers,” Fremeau said.

Fremeau has a bulletin board where she hangs every student’s Polaroid photo from each of her classes. She takes these photos on the first day of school and leaves them up the entire semester. The bulletin board, with its bright background, is representative of the environment Fremeau is trying to create in her class: one where students can come together and discover a passion for reading.