Keeping all of this in mind, we can find some ways in which technology can promote the love of reading and help students to find books that they, too, will really love. Here are some ideas that require different amounts of time commitment from students and teachers.
Smaller Time Commitment- One Minute Book Reviews
Sometimes less is more. In one minute book reviews, the students can use a tool like Flipgrid to quickly share what they thought about the book.To get ready for the book review, you'll want to provide some kind of template, or sentence starters that the students could use. They can prepare thoughts about:
- A quick overview of the book (no spoilers)?
- An idea of who the main characters are?
- What genre of literature it is
- Why they liked the book?
- "If you liked....you might like this book"
- How the book made them feel
The students could also show the cover of their book, draw a picture of the book, or show some illustrations of the book (if they book has illustrations).
Here are some examples of book reviews that other teachers have tried on flipgrid.
- Koalas Book Talk (Elementary students share their favorite books from the library)
- National Reading Month Book Talks- 6th grade book talks
- Summer Reading Book Talks - Middle School
Medium Time Commitment - Book Blogs
Just as students can speak about their books, they can also write about them. Book blogs are similar to book talks on Flipgrid, and you would use the same type of question prompts.
Probably the most comprehensive resource I've found to help prepare students for book blogging is by Julie Esanu, Amy Blaine, and Greg Chapuis who created an entire lesson plan, including rubrics and templates to help you prepare the students for creating book reviews.
Here are some examples of book review blogs that students have made.
Bryan Book Blog- Written by 4th and 5th graders at Bryan elementary school
Mr. Boylen's 7th Grade Book Blogs
Longer Time Commitment- Book Trailer
Another fun way for students to entice others to read a book they enjoyed is by creating a book trailer. A book trailer works exactly the same way as a movie trailer, in that its goal is to encourage the viewer to be more interested in learning more about the book, while at the same time not giving away too much information.
Book trailers do take a little more time, because they require the students to storyboard and plan their trailer, search for fair use pictures, and then create the actual trailer by combining words, music, and pictures. That said, if done right, the results can be very powerful!
Here are some resources that you can use when creating book trailers.
Book Trailers for Readers- This is a great place to start, with lots of tips and resources!
In the past years, students here at Holmes have created book trailers, here are some examples from former Hornets!
An authentic audience and purpose
The beauty of all three of these options is that they can serve a real purpose and have a real audience. Students often come down to the LMC saying that they don't know what to read,. The blogs, videos, and trailers all can be used to help others choose books that they might like.
There are various ways that we can use these resources and get them to the audience they deserve.
- Link them to the end of the "What's the Buzz" (our weekly update that gets sent to the students)
- Tweet the links to the blogs or videos, or trailers so that others can see them
- Embed links to the blogs, videos, or trailers into Alexandria (Library Management Software)
- Create QR codes (especially) for the Flipgrids or trailers. These QR codes can be left at the end caps of sections in the school library, or even sent to the public library for them to use in the Young Adult section
- Connect with other classrooms using #comments4kids and Kidblog connections.
Clearly, there are plenty of options for the students to say "I just read the best book, let me tell you about it"!
No comments:
Post a Comment