We had so much fun with our January & February Book Challenge, that we’re having another one!

First, my reflection on the January & February Challenge. I was blown away by how intensely some of our students got into reading for this challenge. There were a total of 15 tasks in the challenge for a total of 15 books, and we had 5 students complete the entire thing and a number of other students come very close! About 40 students turned in their logs to me at the end of the challenge, but I know more participated. We had a total of 39 join the group on Schoology.

I could have done a better job in a few areas. First, I should have made more announcements/reminders to keep pushing students along. The ones who did participate were very much self-motivated. I didn’t even post the updates on Schoology as regularly as I should have. I’ll definitely be better about this next round. I also planned to do some type of leader board. That didn’t happen at all. The points and such were too difficult to keep up with and organize on a larger scale.

I’ve had questions from my blog and Twitter followers about a few things. First, I said I was going to do prizes. I ended up nixing the prizes. I’m not much of a prize person because I want them to be intrinsically motivated, and these kids really were. Instead, I opted to do an “event” at the end of the challenge. We had nachos, discussions, and activities including make your own bookmark. Once again, my communication skills were a bit lacking (and I had to reschedule it). I only had 7 students show up for the after school event, but we had SO MUCH FUN that it was completely and totally worth it. I have no doubt that I’ll have more show up next time. And they felt that the event was plenty enough “reward” for them.

I also had the question of how I was going to verify if they actually read the books or not. This is another reason I went away from the original idea of prizes. I wanted this to be completely on the honors system (with a little help/monitoring from their ELA teachers).  For the most part, I think the students were pretty honest about what they read. Like I said earlier, the students who truly participated in this were self-motivated and pushing themselves to read more. And WOW, did they ever!

SO, I’m very excited that today was the start of the Spring Book Challenge!

Spring Book Challenge by librariantiff

After getting feedback and seeing how things went, I made a few changes. First, I did away with the “points” for different categories. I also went from 15 tasks to 10 tasks. And we cut down the time frame from two months to one month. Some students felt overwhelmed by the length of the first challenge, so this one is pared down a bit.

I’m excited to get this new challenge started! And I love the graphic I created! And I love the 10 tasks! Yay! So, as always, feel free to take this and make it your own! I’m excited to share something that my students and I are enjoying so much.

Happy 2013 friends!

I’m very excited to get 2013 off to a great start with a January & February Book Challenge. Back in August, I had big plans for Reader’s Quest, which never even really came into existence at my school. After reading Donalyn Miller’s The Book Whisperer last year, I got really excited about the idea of replicating what she does at our school. All of our ELA teachers read the book over the summer and it was very interesting to see how others thought they were or weren’t working along the same lines as what Donalyn does in her classroom. They didn’t all share the same opinions as me, though, so it wasn’t the miracle I was seeking. Also, we do the Accelerated Reader program at our school. I’m not even going to get into that in detail at this point and discuss what we do with it. The biggest obstacle in our getting rid of the program is that everyone feels that we need something to replace it, something to hold students accountable for their reading. So at this point, we’re just kind of stuck.

Bottom line — I can’t keep sitting around scratching my head trying to figure out this AR/Reading Program conundrum. There just isn’t an across the board solution to get all students where they should be with reading. If there were, we would all be doing it already…DUH! I also can’t keep clinging to the “we just moved/there’s a lot of change/I’m just going to take it easy” excuse, either. I did that for the first semester and I’m not overly pleased with where it got me. Don’t get me wrong, the move was HUGE and as a school we experienced a crazy amount of change in 2012. But I can’t continue to dwell on that — it’s time to get on with it!

Back in my early days of wedded bliss, I frequented the message board on The Nest (which is where you moved after your were finished with wedding planning on The Knot). One of the boards was a Book Club, and each quarter there would be a Winter/Spring/Summer/Fall Book Challenge. Basically, there are five “challenges” in each 5, 10, 15, and 25 point category. It really got me to read outside of my comfort zone. It also pushed me to read even more than usual, which was really saying something for me!

I’m thinking that something along these lines will be easier to manage than Reader’s Quest was going to be for me. Each student who chooses to participate will get a log of sorts to track their books and points. I will also have a Schoology group for these students, where each week they can post the books they have most recently finished and their running point total. Each week I’ll post an updated leader board  in the library and on our Friday Video. I’m going to have some prizes, of course. I’m also going to offer this as a competition among the teachers as well.

January February Book Challenge

A book can only count once, even if it could fit into multiple categories. You can only use each category once as well. However, books are not necessarily “locked in” once they’re read — you can move them to a different category as long as the other rules are still met. I don’t think I’m going to do a 25 point category at this time. Typically, the top 5 winners in the previous challenge create the 25 point challenges for the next round. If this is a success, we’ll go that route.

I’m planning to make a promotional video and tracking log of some sort, which I’ll share when it’s completed. And I hope you noticed the cute logo — no project can officially kick off until there is a cute logo attached to it! If you are interested in doing something similar, feel free to use anything I’ve created. The Google Doc with the challenges can be found here, and the logos are available on my Flickr.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this…especially if you’ve ever done something similar!

I’ve really been putting a major focus this year on reading. I always read more than my fair share, but I’ve been thinking a lot about how essential it is for me to read excessively so I can recommend amazing books to my students. This year I’ve also been thoroughly enjoying making recommendations to many of my colleagues AND my awesome principals. When our kids are getting book recommendations from all of us and hear us talking about books, I know it makes a difference. I mean, one of our fabulous counselors always introduces me to new students when she shows them around, telling them that I am an incredible “literary stylist” (shout out to Brandi!). We are making strides to growing our culture of reading, and it’s great.

While making my way through my extensive list of books to read, I FINALLY read the incredible book Wonder by R.J. Palacio. Oh my gosh, it’s the best books I’ve read this year, HANDS DOWN. We are teaching “The Leader in Me” program at our school as well, and Wonder goes hand-in-hand with everything we’re promoting through this program. As soon as I finished reading Wonder, I pushed it over to my principals and insisted that they read it immediately. Of course they loved it as much as I did, and I shared some of the great things that other schools are doing with the book, including One Book, One School.

I am SO very excited that this week, we are starting a school-wide read-aloud of Wonder at Central Middle!! My amazing principals ordered 45 copies of this beautiful book so each teacher of Flex Time (where we do Leader in Me and other positive/leadership activities) will have a copy to read to their students.

I’m very excited about the possibilities and opportunities that will come with our reading of this amazing book with all of our students.

If you haven’t read this book yet, WHAT are you waiting for??

If you’re interested in more resources on Wonder, check out these links: http://choosekind.tumblr.com & http://rjpalacio.com

Book Trailer:

(or my Library Superpower OR why I read MG books so obsessively)

I like to think that my greatest library superpower is my ability to put the right book in the right hands. It’s a job that I take very seriously. If I ever reach the point where a comment to the effect of, “You always recommend the BEST books Mrs. Whitehead,” gets old, then I need to start doing something else. I really take a lot of pride in this ability.

Recently, one of my ELA teachers — after I passed along Lauren Myracle’s Shine and John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars for her reading pleasure — explained my talent to her students in a way that totally made my day:

If you don’t have a book that you are reading and enjoying, then you NEED to go see Mrs. Whitehead. She knows exactly how to find the perfect book that you will love and not be able to put down. I’m telling you — it’s just like she can look into your eyes and see it, then know what book you need!

It’s easy to get distracted by all of the other aspects of our job, the technology, troubleshooting, programs, and day to day library business to the point that we forget that reading and recommending books is still at the heart of our job. We all know that if we’re doing our job, there’s no WAY that we have time to read at work regularly. But then the thought of my kids never seeing me read really bothers me, too. I’m supposed to be their ultimate reading role-model. They’ve got to see me read sometime! I try to keep my current read on my desk (amid everything else that seems to converge on my desk over the course of the day). I let them see it, know what I’m reading, maybe see me read a few pages from time to time, even. But like I said, if I depended on “reading time” during the course of the school day, I’d never even finish a book! So it’s something I commit myself to doing. It’s not always easy, especially when I get into a reading slump. It’s all worth it, though, when I’m able to take that book that I just finished and hand it with confidence to a child that I know won’t be able to put it down.

Here are some of my favorite go-to books to recommend —

For recovering Hunger Games addicts:

  

Series for girls without too much mature content:

 

Books for boys:

 

Edgy reads to hook more mature reluctant readers:

  

For my mature, YA reading girlies:

  

For my Sci-Fi/Fantasy lovers:

  

For those looking for a book that’s not boring:

  

I’d love for you share your go-to recommendations for your students! I’m working on my to read list for this summer, and it’s going to be a looong list!