You may have read my "Why I don't do literature circles and what I do instead" post, and now you want to try my classroom book clubs method. But you have some questions: What does it look like inside a "book club" meeting? What types of activities do you do? What questions do you ask students? What do you discuss and how? How do you keep it all organized? In this blog post, I hope to shed a little more light on the anatomy of my book club meetings. If you haven't already read my first blog post about the concept or structure in general, … [Read more...]
Books Without Movies Your Students Will Want to Read… Anyway
With so many books being turned into money-making movie franchises, it might be hard to get your students to read something that hasn’t been recreated on the big screen. While I’m not opposed to the book-turned-movie selections (my Netflix queue is full and waiting for me to binge a few), I’ve always sought out books for my students that weren’t as popular. I’ll chalk it up to erring on the side of wanting to be different. Either way, the five books I’ve taught below haven’t hit the box office yet, and the fact that there are titles … [Read more...]
Benefits of Using Task Cards in Middle and High School
Using task cards in middle and high school can be hugely successful. Interestingly, I was using "task cards" in my high school English class before I knew they were called that - and way before they looked so cute! If I needed to guide a particular group on a topic or break up the assignment, I would often just grab some colored index cards and a sharpie and begin assigning the tasks, differentiating, or reviewing! Now with the wonderful world of technology :) and access to tons of programs, task cards can come in any form or fashion. Here … [Read more...]
