Monday, August 19, 2013

First Day of School--Book Talk Day!

Tomorrow is the first day of school and I'm doing something I've never really done before--I'm pretty much doing "Book Talk" in two of my three courses.  I thought long and hard about it, and decided that I'm going to come out of the gates swinging.  I've been teaching now for 14 years (*silent scream*--No, I can't believe it!), and the kids know what I'm about and I don't often have to set the stage.  Why spend the first day reading my disclosure document, handing out rule books, and explaining school policies?  I want to get them excited about reading and use that to set the stage for our year.  I hope it works!

One of the things I've noticed that gets my students interested in reading is a continued enthusiasm on my part for all things book related.  The more often I can share what I'm reading, let them share what they're reading, or share what they could be reading--the better!  So, tomorrow I'm going to do this cool little book talk activity to introduce two of my classes.  (AP Lit. gets to dive in on a discussion of Frankenstein, so it's a different type of "Book Talk," I suppose.)

We'll see how it goes, but I have a feeling that it's going to be a lot better than some of my normal methods.  Besides, it's all about books.  How can you go wrong with awesome books?!?  

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like such a great idea!! Your students are lucky to have you as their teacher. I wish I was in your class. Good luck tomorrow!

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  2. Sounds good! I didn't have any teachers talk about course policies and texts until college. It made for an easy first day, though.

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  3. What a great idea! Hope it's the start of a very good year :)

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  4. great idea. what grade do you teach? I think it's a wonderful idea. maybe you can have an extra credit book reading program?

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