Monday, May 2, 2016

A New Beginning for Our Final Stretch

Another Monday

Greetings from chilly Brooklyn. As the school year winds down,  I like to make life easier for my students and myself.  After the long school year of reading groups, homework assignments, test prep and the actual tests. I like to finish off the school year on a high note.  What I've done for the past 8 years now is to find a hot YA book and use it as a read aloud book club.  

End of Year Book Clubs

After the tests are over, I like to introduce our final novel of the year.  It's always a little too hard for the kids but a popular book they know and love.  In the past, I have done Twilight, The Hunger Games and Divergent.  This year we're reading Cinder, a sci-fi fairy tale about a cyborg Cinderella in a futuristic New Beijing.  

I let the kids choose their own groups (4-6 kids in each groups depending on class size) and the games begin.  This is a little different than traditional books clubs in that everyone reads, or listens to, the same book.  Since the book is more difficult than most of my students could read independently, I also get the audio version.  We read along as the CD reads the story aloud to us for about 20-25 minutes a day, and then the kids have a list of book  questions that they have 15-20 minutes to discuss and then write a summary of for me to review their classwork.  They can choose the direction of where their group goes.  

It's always a big hit and I'm looking forward to getting started on a brand new book (for me too!).  I'll keep you updated about how it's going.

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