Playing Along

At times throughout the year, I will read aloud to my students.  Yes, Junior Honors English students need to be read to, too.  It's good for them to hear the rhythm and voices of a skilled reader.  I also find that reading aloud to students gets them more interested in reading in general.  Around prom time, I usually read Jean Shepherd's Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and other Disasters out loud to my students.  It's a silly story, and we have fun with it.  The goal for the reading varies depending on the group in front of me.  This time around we focused on: part to whole.  How do parts of the story (setting, characterization, literary devices) help support the overall message of the story.  I read all parts of the story out loud--except for one.  There is a part at the dance when the band playing (ah...a time before DJs played bump and grind music) features the "band's romantic vocalist" who also doubles as the drummer.  I always request a student volunteer to read the parts where he sings.  It's fun to see the personalities of the classes come out.  I can usually predict which classes are going to need a bit more coaxing to get a volunteer.  This year, I got an volunteer, but he would only do it with a pal--a backup singer, if you will.

Here they are, prepping to "moo," as the text requires them to do:

As you can see, one of our warblers is not too thrilled at the prospect of being filmed/photographed during his singing--but they rose to the occasion.  Thanks for playing along, gents.  And for showing that reading is more fun the more you get into it.

#ReadingChampions

When a student in our class has finished reading a book on his/her own, the student shares a brief synopsis and review of the book with everyone.  Then, he is awarded a Reading Champion Ribbon to tack up on the wall--and we add to our book count.  We are working really hard to reach the 100 mark before the end of the year.  C'mon, readers!  Let's finish strong!

Book review in progress:


Ribbons and book count in background of photo.

Bulletin board title: Readers are Leaders

Lit Circles with Student Choice, Autonomy, & Control

As we approach the end the school year, and engage in our final unit of study, students are in groups, reading a novel they selected (from a provided list).  This spring, the student options are: The Secret Life of Bees, The Things They Carried, and The Road.  Students rated the books after listening to a book talk on each, indicating their level of interest.  Based on their responses, I placed them in groups (as best I could) with their top choices.

Students prepare analyses of what they've read based on a teacher-created schedule; however, students determine how much they read for each scheduled day.  I try to give them as much autonomy as possible, but for this final unit, I selected the topics they would discuss (characterization, setting, syntax, structure, etc) so that they could be best prepared for the final exam.

Here they are discussing their novels on their first collaborative discussion day: