The Deal

At its core, Pass the Line is about more than simply reading books; it is about interacting with literature, generating ideas about it, recognizing its relevance, and sharing your ideas with your fellow Pass the Liners. In order to do this, all members are encouraged to mark the text, write questions and notes in the margins, insert post-it notes, and do whatever it takes to get those ideas out for each Pass the Line book. In addition, Pass the Liners are encouraged to note any outside resources of interest in books, and to photocopy relevant articles, photos, or excerpts to pass along with the book once they are finished.

Pass the Line is not for those who believe that respecting books means eschewing dogearing for purchased bookmarks to keep the pages crease-free. Rather, Pass the Liners believe that a softened, worn spine is the sign of a well-loved book, and that it is worth the time it takes to interact with a book to truly discover the relevance of the text. Your Pass the Line books will return to you at the end of a cycle worn, beaten, and full of thoughts and ideas that will open up an entirely new reading for you. Pass the Line books return to their owner with the same trappings of travel and distance as a hardcover suitcase at the end of a long journey; each Pass the Liner will leave his or her own stamp on the book, thus creating a mosaic of ideas and experiences.

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I created Pass the Line as an experiment in shared reading experiences. The purpose is simply to see what happens when readers record their thoughts about a text and pass them along. Empirically, we know that the meaning and thought a reader puts into a text is just as important as the text itself. My hope is that this experience will deepen our connections to these texts, broaden our exposure to pieces we may not otherwise choose to read, and widen our reading experience by creating a portable documentation of our collective thoughts. Our reactions to the texts will vary widely, and as Pass the Liners add their notes to each book what we are truly doing is creating an ongoing dialogue with the Pass the Line community.

I have this vision of Pass the Line books being added to the Library of Congress collection as a representation of how we should be reading. Of course, this is merely the stuff of dreams for a novice teacher. But at the very least, I hope Pass the Line books will become a treasured part of your own personal collections. For me, they will become scrapbooks of a particular time and place--a montage of who we were and what we thought that year.

-Lori