Lynn Hagen started Project Lit at Battle after she joined the Project Lit community in 2016. She first introduced Project Lit to her AVID 10 class in 2107, but they didn’t commit to the club until after they read their first book, The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas. The  Project Lit community was first created in Nashville, Tennessee by a teacher named Jared Amato to get more students involved with young adult literature, as well as the community and the world. 

Lynn Hagen, Project Lit sponsor, said, “The club has gotten more students to read more books that are actually interesting and can relate to their personal lives.” 

Giving students a chance to discuss their books can be beneficial. It can bring real-world issues to the students, and they can voice their problems and solutions towards the real-world problems they learned about within their books. 

Hagen explained why she became the Project Lit sponsor, “I love books and I love to read. I would love to have more adults and students in Battle talk about the books they read.”

Hagen believes that when everyone reads books, teachers understand their students more, and students understand their peers. When more people understand each other through reading, the world will become a better place.

“Adults are actually impressed with our students because they didn’t know that students could care about important issues in the community,” Hagan said.

Reading is how we learn about the world and about the experiences of others around the world instead of only our personal ones. Project Lit helps to get good, and relevant literature in the hands of students at Battle.

Jayme Pingrey, media center specialist, said, “Books are great for empathy and can help us to become more human, and books can help to give students a more diverse state of mind.”

Rickeah Henderson, senior, is involved with Project Lit. Henderson said,  “Reading is important and I think it’s great to talk about real-life themes happening on the local and global levels.”

Henderson explained why she believes Project Lit is enjoyable, “Different authors actually come to Battle and we are able to meet with them and discuss their books themes with them.”

Amaya Daniels, junior, isn’t involved with Project Lit yet, but has been interested in being a part of the book club group and discussions.

Daniels said, “I would love to meet the authors of the books that I read, and I like the idea of exchanging ideas and thoughts about the books with other students and teachers.”

The Project Lit meeting was held Sept. 26 during Spartan Time. If you want to know more about the meeting, visit the spartanspearhead.com.