A few months into my first year of teaching middle-school English in Santa Fe, I realized that a handful of my students were not reading books. I had carefully structured the class time so there would be 20 minutes for silent, light-dimmed independent reading. Most of the students tucked into a novel at their desks or on the floor — an angsty adolescent novel or a dog-eared Harry Potter. But six or seven children in my class of 20 would just sit at their desks and stare out the window. Or doodle on the back of their hand. Or unfold a paper clip and use it to make intricate carvings into an eraser. (Smartphones, the ultimate distractors, were not yet a thing.)
