Week 8 of school and also Teen Read Week. We're doing a few Teen Read activities, headed up by the Media Specialist. I think it's rather fun (loving to read) so I wanted to write about it. First, we're doing D.E.A.R every day at a random moment (Drop Everything And Read). I love it because I can read a book in the middle of school (fortunately, the teachers know when it will be so we can plan our lessons around it, but the students don't know!). I chose to read The House of the Scorpion, because several of the students are reading it (it's about cloning, and interesting). We taped 5 mystery "book lovers" to play over the morning announcements, and the students have to guess who is reading and what book; I got to be one of the mystery readers too! Some of the kids guess right away, but then again, they asked yesterday if it was me, and it wasn't, so I think they are just guessing!
We also had our students create a poster with their favorite books/authors/genres and hung them in the cafeteria.
I'm handing out raffle tickets to students I see with a book or reading a book, and I'm doing a raffle at the end of the week.
So it's been pretty positive on the reading end ... although I like teaching grammar and writing, I do miss teaching the literature... and I don't really enjoy teaching CMT prompts (so far - maybe once I get used to it, I will like it more!). Journaling has been great - the students get disappointed when I have to cut them off!
Still, I'm glad they seem to enjoy it! And it makes for interesting conversations about the art of writing.
That's all folks!
