Teacher-Mentors with Insights, Ideas, and Resources for Secondary Readers & Writers Workshop
One of my favorite books is Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. This book altered my thinking more than any single book I’ve read before or after. I am grateful for the insights this book gave me. I am a better person because of it.
When I saw Transatlantic, I knew that it belonged in my library.
This clip gives us a glimpse into the author’s thinking, and he reads a bit of the story.
(Oh, and I LOVE his chair.)
My AP English students are in the middle of an end-of-year book project. In groups of three, they chose a book from the Pulitzer Prize or the Man-Booker Prize lists. They are reading and discussing these books and trying to determine what makes them award winners. They will create most of the parts of an AP English exam, based on the books they’ve read and discussed together.
Students are reading and discussing these complex, rich texts–literature at the top of the literary food chain. There are few things that make me more excited.
Here’s a glimpse into one of the books students chose for this project:
My AP Language students are in the middle of this big book project. I had them choose an award winning book from the Pulitzer or the Man-Book Prize lists. They are reading and discussing these books in small groups. Then they will create an AP exam using passages from their books–we are working on thinking like test writers. I told them when they were selecting titles that if the book had been made into a movie they had to include a film study into their project and teach class for a day.
One group chose to read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I look forward to their analysis of this movie.
A while back I had a problem. I had finally succeeded in getting some of my resistant sophomore boys to read. But they were stuck in the Ranger’s Apprentice series. Now, it’s not that I have a problem with those books. No, I love those stories– mostly because many boys who will not read another thing will read them, but. . . we are talking pre-AP 10th graders here. I knew I needed to get them moving up the ladder of complexity — at least a little bit.
I called on my PLN and tweeted out a plea for suggestions. The Chronicles of Imaginarium Geographica series lit up my screen.
Okay then.
I have no idea if this series is really more complex; I don’t care. If nothing else, my students have more choice.
Here There are Dragons by James A. Owen is the newest book for the fantasy shelf in my classroom library. I hope it never gets to sit there. Books are much more useful in a child’s hands.
This is a student-made trailer. I love that the description on Youtube says,
“This is the trailer for the best book I have ever read.”
We are making book trailers again. This is my students’ favorite project.
We’ve read more books in room A202 than the history of room A202, and our school has been around for 100 years. We have read tons of pages!
Now it’s time to make a trailer about our favorite books and add some persuasive techniques to convince our friends to read these books, too.
In the past I’ve always asked students to use Animoto as their creation tool. This year I’d like to offer students more choices, so I’ve been doing a little research.
My homework is to play with a few new tools:
EZvid — Automatic slideshow maker for YouTube
If anyone knows of a good tech tool to use for making typography videos (You know, where the letters and words drop onto the screen?) please let me know. I cannot find a free version of anything.
Any ideas on other video creation tools?
I will post student made book trailers soon.
I am not sure how the book Twelve Mighty Orphans walked into my house, but it fit right in. All four of my sons played Texas football, and for many years we lived at one football stadium or another. One year we attended three games a week with three sons on two different middle school teams, and our oldest son playing on varsity at the high school. It was either that year or the next that Tanner’s team won the state championship. It’s all a blur of blue and white.
Everything you have heard about Texas football is true. It’s big, and it consumes your life.
Maybe that’s why this book by Jim Dent had such a voice at my house. My husband read it. My sons read it. How could I not?
Not much compares to talking with your teenage athlete sons about a book.
This non-fiction book chronicles the efforts of one man to make a difference in the lives of orphan boys. He teaches them to play football, but he teaches them much more than that. This trailer introduces the storyline with beautiful images:
Many of my female students love her Delirium series, and I am happy to say that maybe even some of my guys will take on Panic, Lauren Oliver’s newest title.
The topic is FEAR.
I haven’t read very far, but I have read enough to know I like this narrative voice. I especially like that I can share it with my students by using this video where Lauren Oliver reads them the first chapter.
Cannot get any cooler than that.
Oh, man. I love and hate this book. You have to read it. Then we need to talk about it. It’s that kind of story, a hauntingly beautiful coming of age story.
Here’s the book trailer:
And a NY Times review
I would love to hear what titles are keeping you up lately. Please share.
I had the book Splintered by A.G. Howard on my shelves for a long while, but with so many other books towering my TBR pile, I kept skipping over it — until I got Unhinged. Now, I am a fan of both. Take a look and see why:
You will never think of the Rabbit Hole or Wonderland in the same way again.
This is cool. Author, Julie Berry, gives a book talk about her new book All the Truth That’s in Me.
While I like that Berry doesn’t come right out and reveal the setting of the book, and I like historical fiction myself, I have a difficult time getting my students to even give it a try — unless the book is set in the time of the holocaust.
I enjoyed reading this book though, and I believe it pairs well with early American literature. I’ll share this video of the author with my students, and maybe when I add my recommendation to her voice, I can get this intriguing and thought-provoking narrative into at least one student’s hands.
Three Teachers Talk 