Book Blogging.....sort of: I am always on the look out for new and different ways for my students to respond to their reading. The same old, "write a paragraph about this book" gets tedious and boring book after book. So I have done quite a few things in my room to try and combat the boredom, while still engaging the students in meaningful book reflection.
One thing I have instituted this year came into my room thanks to
Educational Insights. They send me this really awesome
Book Blog Writing Center and my students are hooked!
The idea of them "blogging" about books has really peaked their interest. Though they are not on the computer, it is set up in a very similar way. There is a section for a post, comments, and "tabs" for book recommendations and author recommendations. It really is sort of neat!
I have this set up as part of my Reading Response options during LAR time. The students who are at this station have the option to respond to their books in a variety of ways. The main way is to write an actual "blog post". Here, the students answer a question posed on the blog board. This week's question is "If you could be friends with any character in your book, who would it be and why?" My students respond to this with the title of the book they are reading and some reasons why. It is still in its infancy, but we are working on pulling evidence from the book to add to the posts. It hasn't *quite* made it in yet, but it will :)
Then, once something is "posted" the students can then comment on the post. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this part of the blog. The new students are responding not about their own book, but about what their peer wrote. It is so amazing to read how thoughtful some of the kids get in response to what other children wrote. I just absolutely love how critical and thinking they are being while responding.
If you look closely at these comments, which are in response to the book "There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom" by Louis Sachar, you can see that the kids are responding to each other. It isn't just their own opinion, but they are taking into account other's ideas as well.
There is also a great part where kids get to "blog" about their favorite books and make recommendations to the students about why they should read the book. (sorry, no pictures of that!)
About every three days or so, I go in and remove the "top post" and a new post gets shown. Then the students who are in the Reading Response station during LAR can post new comments and it all starts over.
I am so happy to have this in my room. It is providing a real, authentic way for my students to respond to their reading, as well as to interact in some way with other readers in my classroom.
And guess what??? Educational Insights is going to give one of my lucky readers a
Book Blog Writing Center to have in their own classroom! All you have to do is enter on the rafflecopter below. I would love to hear how you plan to use this in your room!
This giveaway will close on Friday morning, 12:01am EST, so be sure to get your entry in! Good luck.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
