In academic English II one of the biggest projects of the year that they will do is their book chat presentations. This project is where they each get to pick a book out of a list and then get together in groups with other people that chose that book and read it. When they are all done reading the book the groups with make a presentation to help the class understand the concept of the book without them actually having to reading it. 

The group that was sat in on was Ryley Quinn, Lauren Noonan, Patrick Quinn, and Parker Williams. This group of students read the book Dear Martin by Nic Stone and gave a very good presentation to show all the parts of the book and what it perceived and what point it was trying to get across.

The book really focused around black lives matter and not racially discriminating against others. In Dear Martin there were several situations where the cops were discriminating and charging people with crimes they did not commit and a black boy ended up dead because the cop thought that he was doing something that he shouldn’t have been, when all he was doing was turning down the radio. Sophomore Ryley Quinn said, “I definitely enjoyed getting to read this book and sharing it with the class. With it being a group project and presentation made it even better to collaborate and come together to understand our book and make the best presentation we could.”

Although this book was all about black lives it also included a scene where there was some discrimination against white people and how a black person would get treated for being with a white person. The one boys mother thought that he would start to get treated differently if he started to date this white girl.

This book really opened your eyes to things and showed you that you should never discriminate against anyone and always pay attention to the little things, because in the end it can hurt someone. Although there were a lot of things that happened the main characters were able to find peace in all of it and just try to move on but not forgot what had happened. Quinn said, “I definitely learned a lot from reading my book, about injustice, standing up for what you believe in and being your own person. It had many great lessons to carry out through life and not be as blind to the world we are living in today. This book portrayed real world situations to give us a glimpse of what we may not see people going through because they are different from us. These were just a few of the many great lessons you can learn from this book.”

The group of students that gave this presentation put a lot of work and effort into it and really showed what the book was about and all the key points that go along with it. They really told the book how it is and you get a good understanding without even reading the book yourself. Quinn said, “I think my group did extremely well on not only meeting the criteria of what we had to do but going beyond that to showcase this book. We wanted everyone else to understand the story that was told because it was a moving book that could help so many people open their eyes to things they don’t see. I hope we were able to do Dear Martin justice in our presentation by working so hard to share the story we came to love.”