As part of a sixth-grade year-long independent reading project at Roslyn Middle School, Ms. Cirringione's classes upped the stakes and decided to compete Harry Potter style. 

At the beginning of the school year, Ms. Cirringione held an elaborate ceremony, complete with her very own Sorting Hat, to assign each student to one of the four Hogwarts houses. Every time a student finishes a book, they drop a gem in a counter to keep track. At the end of the quarter, gems are counted and a quarterly winner is declared. This quarter, the Ravenclaw Readers, consisting of twenty-six students who read a whopping 122 novels, snagged the House Cup for Quarter 1. 

“The delight they get from dropping a gem into the house counter bottle is indicative of the tremendous pride they take in their reading journey,” said Ms. Cirringione. “They are growing as readers and thinkers. When they get to report their accomplishments, they cannot get over how many books they've been able to read in just one quarter." 

“They are doing a ton of reading,” said English Chair Jennifer Sapir. “And this is in addition to the class novels they study in class as a whole. Congratulations to these avid readers and best of luck to all houses in the coming quarter!”