National Board Portfolio-Mailed!

Posted on March 29, 2012 by thereadingzone

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It’s done! I mailed it!

After months of writing entries, I finally finished.  And I even mailed my box a few days early!

I can now rejoin the blogging world. 🙂

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Weekly Diigo Posts (weekly)

Posted on March 25, 2012 by thereadingzone

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Weekly Diigo Posts (weekly)

Posted on March 18, 2012 by thereadingzone

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Weekly Diigo Posts (weekly)

Posted on March 11, 2012 by thereadingzone

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Jumping Off the Page with Social Reading- Share a Story, Shape a Future 2012

Posted on March 8, 2012 by thereadingzone

*this post was originally published in March 2010, when I was teaching middle school.  However, I have the same experiences with my high school students*

As a sixth grade teacher, I meet many students who immediately profess their hatred of reading to me on the first day of school.  While I do everything I can to draw a passion for reading out of them, nothing is more powerful than the recommendation of a friend.  Social reading, the act of one person recommending a book to another, has caused books to literally fly off my shelves.  It’s my most powerful secret weapon in the fight against reading hate.

If you take a look at the list of books my students last year thought shouldn’t be missed, you’ll see many books that might not be familiar at first glance. But they are familiar to my students. More than familiar. Each of those books was introduced to the class either by my booktalk, a personal recommendation to a particular student, or when a student found it in the library.  However, the power of recommendations from fellow students was what made  each book a “must read” for the rest of my classes.

So how does a book become a social read?  How do we harness this power and repeat it over and over, year after year?  Back in June, I took a few minutes to look over my classroom surveys and tried to find an example of a social read in my classroom.  One of the most popular student recommended books in my classroom for two years running is the Cirque du Freak series .

I read the first book in Darren Shan’s series a few years ago.  While I enjoyed it, it’s definitely not my kind of book.  (Too much gore and horror!)  However, it’s a great example of the horror genre and I booktalk it every year.  While I may not want to read the whole series, it’s the perfect book for dormant readers, especially boys.

Last year, I booktalked the series to the class as a whole.  One student raised his hand and requested to read my copy.  I handed it over and told him to let me know what he thought after reading it.  A few days later, that former dormant reader was almost done the book and couldn’t stop talking to me about it.  I explained that I didn’t love the book and he asked me why, getting me to  outline why I didn’t enjoy them.  We not only had a great discussion about finding the right book for the right reader, but also about why he loved the book.  Within the week, he had moved onto the second book in the series.  This was a reader who previously met me head-on whenever I tried to recommend a book, circumventing everything I tried.

Over the course of the week, while conferencing about his reading, I noticed a few of my other students leaning closer to us, listening in.  On the Friday of that week, I decided to take a few minutes at the end of a class period to have the students share what they were reading and some brief thoughts, thinking it might spark an interest in a few other students.  I had nothing to lose!  My dormant reader did his own book talk for Cirque du Freak: A Living Nightmare and man, was he good!  He talked it up way better than I could have, because he genuinely loved the book. Before I could even take out the other copies I had, 5 hands were waving in the air. Students who struggled to find a book, students who abandoned books constantly- all requesting to read Cirque du Freak: A Living Nightmare.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I figured one or two of the students might finish the book, with the others moving on from the book as quickly as they moved on from other books they had attempted.  As it was still early in the year, I didn’t know my readers very well. To my eyes, Darren Shan’s books didn’t seem like the right match for them.  Having nothing to lose and wanting all of my students to try books that they thought they would enjoy, I passed out all of my copies.  The students all settled down that day with their copy of the book and began reading.

I did make one change to our reading time at that point. The boys reading Cirque du Freak: A Living Nightmare begged to sit near each other during reading time and I let them.  It was the best decision I could have made.  I watched as that group of boys expanded over the year, with new readers entering the fold every week and the original readers staying put, reading the rest of the books in the series.  They would quietly answer each other’s questions, discuss predictions, and jokingly cover their ears if someone who was ahead of them in the series began to talk about a spoiler.  It was amazing to watch.  The best part?  All I did was provide the initial booktalk that hooked ONE dormant reader.  His enthusiasm spread to more readers, and then to more.  It was a domino effect.  He did more than I could have ever done to inspire a passion for reading.

Over the course of the year, Cirque du Freak became a “best-seller” in my classroom.  I give all the credit to the students who spent the whole year talking to each other about their books.  At the end of the year four of my students had finished the entire series, two moved on to reading The Demonata #1: Lord Loss: Book 1 in the Demonata series, and about 10 were at various points in the original series.  Why?  Because I allowed reading the books to be social.  They didn’t talk to each other during independent reading, other than to answer questions quietly, but they did talk about the books constantly.  The students carried their books around all day, competed with each other to see who made the best predictions and who read the series the fastest, and they constantly recommended the series to other students.  While that may seem to go against everything we have been taught about SSR (one of those S’s is supposed to stand for Silent!), but allowing students to share and discuss books meant even more students READ the books!

Social reading is such a powerful concept and one of the best ways to get students to enjoy books and reading.  Howcan we capture that in more classrooms?

  • Start with teachers who are enthusiastic about books!
  • Booktalk, booktalk, booktalk.  Make your students aware of their choices.
  • Allow kids to be passionate about their book choices.  Maybe they don’t choose to read the books you think are “literary” or otherwise worthy, but they are reading.  And those books will be a gateway to more books.
  • Kids are social creatures by nature.  If they are talking about books, encourage it!  Give them an opportunity to talk about their books, but without doing a book report or graded booktalk.  Attaching these social opportunities to a graded assignment makes it a pressure-filled situation for the kids and they won’t enjoy it.  They’ll be too busy worrying about their own grade to listen to what anyone else has to say.
  • Cultivate those scenarios where kids are talking about books.  Whether it’s in the hallways, at lunch, or in your classroom- keep the conversation going!  Don’t talk down to your kids or pass judgement on their reading choices.  Just let them read!
  • Make sure books are available!  If they fall in love with a series, figure out a way to get copies of the books.  Let their parents know what they are reading, have the school librarian order more copies, scour garage sales, etc.  I also have my students make book donations at the end of the year, donating books to the classroom that they no longer need.  Needless to say, I now own more than my fair share of Darren Shan’s books.  😉  But do everything you can to make books available to your students!  My current students are currently passing around The Lightning Thief.  Everyday another student asks for a copy, so I own 4 copies.  I just placed an order with Scholastic for 5 more copies.  Anything to keep them reading!

Social reading is so very powerful.  It’s also so easy to grow in our classrooms and homes.  Kids are opinionated and they know what they like.  While they love to hear our ideas and recommendations (as long as they believe in us and know we aren’t being fake), they love to hear from their peers even more.

When my students leave my classroom and move on to the middle school they express concern that they won’t have me to rely on anymore for books.  My response?  I’m just a crutch they are used to having.  Most of them are long past the days of relying solely on my booktalks and recommendations to choose their books.  I remind them that they will always be surrounded with peers and friends and classmates.  That’s a huge pool of resources just waiting to be tapped!  As long as everyone does their part, continuing to read and share their books, my students will always have books to read.  It’s a culture- a reading culture- and we need to start cultivating it in our schools!

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World Literature That High School Students Actually Want to Read- Share a Story, Shape a Future 2012

Posted on March 6, 2012 by thereadingzone

I teach World Literature and I love the responsibility of introducing my students to literature from across time and across the world.  Along with the canon literature that I am required to cover, I try to bring in as much multicultural YA as I can, through booktalks, book trailers, displays, and read-alouds.  Over the past year I have been compiling a list of books that have caught the attention of my students and I am excited to share them today. This is by no means a complete list, as I focus on the areas of the world that my curriculum centers on.

Multicultural YA for Discerning Teen Reader

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Building a Culture of Literacy at the Secondary Level – Share a Story, Shape a Future 2012

Posted on March 5, 2012 by thereadingzone

I have an obsession with reading.  Some might say that is an unhealthy obsession (my husband is reminding me that our house is a fire hazard), but I disagree.  I can’t imagine my life without reading, so I make it my mission to share that love with the students at my high school.

This year I’ve been working with one of my colleagues, the wonderful Michelle, to build a culture of literacy at our STEM-based schools.  While we are blessed to teach such gifted students, they can sometimes look at reading as a waste of time because they are drawn to math and science instead.  Together, we’ve been working to draw them back to reading and we are definitely seeing results! So what are we doing to build a culture of literacy among high school students?

  • Surround the students with books!

You can never, ever, ever have too many books.  And surrounding students with books will show them that you value books and literacy.  Eventually, they will wander over to the shelves and pick up a few books.  They will page through them.  They will start to read.  And they will find a book they enjoy.

One corner of my classroom library, back in September, before it became messy.

My school does not have a school library.  We are located on a college campus so we have access to their library, which is outstanding, but it’s outside of our building so I often miss the “easy access” of a school library.  I know a lot of teachers are in a similar situation because budgets being slashed so often equals losing the school librarian.  But you can still surround students with books!  Scholastic, library book sales, used book stores, and of course, #ARCsFloatOn can all help teachers build up a classroom library.

And remember, classroom libraries aren’t the only way to surround students with books.  Michelle recently started a book nook at her school, with parents donating books to a set of shelves in a busy area of the hallway.  This way, any student can borrow a book or browse the titles.  I love it and can’t wait to steal her idea!

  • Booktalks

Talk to your students about books and they will start reading.  Booktalks can be almost any advertisement for a book that you can come up with.  The most common booktalk is just standing in front of the students and telling them about a book, like a movie trailer but orally.  You can also show book trailers in class.  I like to post book trailers on our class Facebook page and in the past I have posted them on our Edmodo page, too.  You can also booktalk using posters, flyers in the bathroom, tweets, or any other method of communication.  The important part is sharing books in and out of the classroom!

  • Be a YA evangelist!

Yup, I am telling you to shout about YA from the rooftops!  I certainly do!  I’ve handed YA books to plenty of my colleagues.  Why?  Because it’s important for my students to see other teachers reading.  It’s one thing for them to see their English teacher reading- they expect that.  But it’s a whole different experience for them to see the Biology teacher reading a book they have also enjoyed.  Seeing their content area teachers reading YA has started a lot of conversations between students and teachers at my school.  How do I do it?  Easy!  My colleagues know that I read a lot so they started asking me for recommendations.  Soon I was handing out books like The Book Thief, Bumped, The Fault in Our Stars, and Revolution.

  • Book clubs

Earlier this year, Michelle and I were watching from the sidelines as our students grew more and more excited about the Hunger Games movie. We realized we wanted to capitalize on that excitement and use to grow a love of reading at our schools.  We decided to start a Hunger Games (re)Read Book Club.  The students were invited to re-read each book of the series, focusing on a single book each month, leading up to the movie.  We publicized the book club and started a discussion on our district Goodreads group.  So far, it’s been a huge success!  The students are reading and rereading the books, coming together to talk about them online and once per month in person.  Michelle and I recently co-wrote an article about our experiment for NJCTE’s journal and I will be sure to link to it when it is available.  But you can start a book club for any book!  Choose something popular and gather a group of students.  We meet at lunch once a month and we also carry on conversations online.  You could use Goodreads, Facebook, Edmodo, Moodle, or any other discussion board/software.  Mold the book club to fit you and your students!

  • Social reading
Kids love to talk.  For that matter, so do adults.  What better way to encourage reading than to let them talk about books?  Take some class time to allow your students to talk to each about the books they are reading.  Or if you don’t have the class time to spare, use online spaces and social media to talk about books.  Every Friday I post #fridayreads on my class Facebook page and a few students respond each week.  Even students who don’t respond get a taste of what their classmates are reading as the post pops up in their newsfeed.  You can do the same on Edmodo.
Look at the amazing Paul Hankins and his RAWINK Online!  His students are talking about reading and writing and interacting with YA authors.  Paul is my literacy hero, so be sure to check out his kids and his page.
There are so many ways to talk about reading with your students.  Give it a try and watch the books walk out of your room!

These are just a few of the ways that I try to build a culture of literacy among my high school students.  So far, I am seeing results.  More students are carrying around books, they are discussing them with each other, and they are making recommendations to their peers.  And all of these ideas can easily be implemented in any high school, middle school, or even college!  But I’d love to hear your ideas….what are you doing to build a culture of literacy at your school?

Filed under: share a story-shape a future | Tagged: , | 7 Comments »

Weekly Diigo Posts (weekly)

Posted on March 4, 2012 by thereadingzone

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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