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According to the National Literacy Institute, 21% of adults in the United States are illiterate as of 2024. Roughly 54% of adults in the United States have a literacy rate below a sixth grade level. For reference, that is about 69,993,000 completely illiterate adults and about 179,982,000 adults with a literacy rate below a sixth grade level.
Some big questions for teachers right now are how to get kids interested in reading, where to find new material, and what is or is not appropriate content for teens. The goal of this project is to begin answering those questions by providing material from around the world for classroom use.
The original idea for this project was to create a tiered system for students, awarding them as they read more and more of the books listed throughout their middle and high school careers. However, the final format of this project is to provide educators with environmentally and culturally competent literature from around the world. Below, you will find listed a piece of film or writing from nearly every country, every U.S. state, and every dependent territory on Earth. The pieces are a variety of genres, reading levels, and formats, with some being graphic novels and others, more advanced pieces of literature. This guide was created to cater to all students and audio books can be found for the print texts, however there are many pieces that can be used in a classroom that are accessible to all students.
