After almost an entire school year of assessing students' reading, writing, and speaking, I have decided to assess this blog's rating system once more. Prior to the school year beginning, I made some changes to the rating system. At that time, they were more drastic than this change. I felt the use of pictures to be easier on the eyes with more of a straightforward approach to rating the books I read. When reviewing a book, I would show which row of books I was giving the bookI felt that the reader of the review would be unable to get a grasp of how many books were being used. Often, I, too, would ask myself, "So what does that mean?" or "How many Goodreads stars does that equate to?" My solution is the system below. Instead of the confusing row of books, pictures of books are used to measure how well I did or did not enjoy the book. The meaning of each rating has been slightly trimmed. For easy reference, you can now find the system on the righthand side, too, above the Archives. If you blog about books, what kind of system do you use?
What do you think of the changes to my system? Are they more helpful to understand the rating for a book? Comment below!
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I gave the book a "monumental" rating because it is just that - monumental. The first half of the book provides the reader with a detailed look into how and why people procrastinate, and it is very fascinating. I'm not much of a science guy, but because I have a history of procrastinating, I was able to relate to the instances that were given. The authors also provided a lot of their own experiences with procrastination. This allowed the reader to relate with them and made the authors not seem so high and mighty. The second half of the book provided suggestions to avoid procrastination. I was able to take out a few of the suggestions and apply them to my life. These tips include: dividing projects into small, manageable chunks; making daily to do lists; starting small by taking just twenty minutes to sit down and do something; and placing time worked on projects in my calendar after I have completed it. Overall, I have seen a lot more projects getting completed on time and I hope to continue this trend as I step into my first classroom in the fall!
I feel that this book would be great for other runners to read. It doesn't matter if you are an Olympian runner or a recreational runner, like I have turned into. This book is great. It is easy to read and follow. Lear chronicles practically each day of the 1998 season. The team and individual dynamics are captured well with quotes, reflections from different runners' journals, and candid moments of both pain, suffering, and victory. The book was "exceptional" in my opinion because of the nostalgic feelings it gave me. It also serves as a great mentor text for journals/diaries. I had some issues with the formatting of quotes between people, some occasional typos, and random musings that carried on for longer than I desired.
I'm not sure if it was because of the mundane daily entries or learning more information about the highly anticipated secret that the narrator holds very close to her. I could not connect with this book. I provided it with a "reasonable" rating because I believe that it would make an impression on another reader. It didn't move me in ways that it may move others. Would I have this in my classroom library? Absolutely. I did find Melinda's daily high school perspective to be entertaining at times, including her take on the school's struggle to find a suitable mascot, the descriptions of her teachers, and her generally dry sense of humor. Laurie Halse Anderson allowed the characters to come alive, but did not develop a meaningful or engaging plot for the characters to navigate and live through. Goodreads Reading Challenge Update This Reading Round Up was jam packed with potential for the Reading Challenge I participate in a Goodread's group. Each book counted for 15 points and allowed me to move up in the leader board. As of this post, I have completed four tasks, four books, and have earned 55 points. As far as reading challenges go, I have always enjoyed them. I have been participating in this group's reading challenges for several years now, and they motivate me to read and allow me to be competitive at the same time. I think reading challenges with categories and points would be a fun way to develop an Independent Reading unit. I thought about developing one during my teaching internship, but came up with #BookBracket2015 instead.
I gave the book an "Exceptional" rating because I really enjoy the themes threaded throughout the book. The plot line is a little farfetched and the storyline does drag on occasion, which removed the novel from the "Monumental" category. During the slow portions of the novel, many of my students struggled. This led to some readers giving up on the novel and others becoming frustrated with it. I could relate with my students because I, too, struggled to read it during my freshman year of high school. But through a reread alongside my students and the teaching that accompanied the reading, I grew to have a greater appreciation for the novel. I believe the novel is a great fit for ninth graders, and the classroom implications are endless. Lord of the Flies Unit for ELA 9 Having never read Anthem (the other option for the spring novel unit), Lord of the Flies was an easy decision to make when it came to the last unit of my internship. The workload for the unit was scaffolded towards the final literary essay. Each component was an important block building up to the analysis required for the essay. Every student was responsible for completing a graphic organizer for every chapter (below). The graphic organizer had students analyzing each chapter with multiple lenses, including psychoanalytic theory, symbolism, Golding's opinion that humans are naturally evil, and major themes. Students were responsible for completing the "Your Notes" columns prior to coming to class. They would use their notes to participate in whole class discussions about the chapter required for the day. Participation was required and graded, and a majority of the discussions were fueled by questions the students had about the chapter or about overall themes and the development of characters. Discussions were in depth and each class period's ideas were fresh. As time went on, I began to notice some of the students were not getting a lot out of the whole class discussion. Lulls in conversation were more frequent and student participation was down, even though it was graded. Through an Exit Ticket Reflection on whole class discussions and some of my own thoughts, I revamped the whole class discussions into fishbowl Socratic Seminars. These Seminars also became summative assessments over the last four chapters.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed teaching Lord of the Flies to my students during my internship year. The students accomplished a ton of assignments and projects and gained a ton of insight and knowledge about the novel in the process. I am looking forward to applying these types of projects, discussions, and deeper level thinking into my future classroom(s) because I believe in the great value it has on each student's thinking. Goodreads Reading Challenge Update
Over the past few months, I have been trapped in an avalanche of recommendations from colleagues, students, peers, and friends. It has been a constant barrage. Now that I am finished with my teaching internship, I have some time to reflect and read in between #JobHunt2015 applications and interviews. With this time, posts centered around book reviews and ways to incorporate books into my classroom will be shared, and I need a rating system for these books. I wanted to keep with the theme of avalanches, so I did some research into avalanches. Scientifically speaking, there is an entire world dedicated to avalanches. There are a lot of excited people are out there who enjoy studying them and they are geeked. After reading about the different types of avalanches (dry, wet, slab) and the destruction sizes ("not enough snow to bury or kill a person"), I decided to loosely base my rating system on the destruction sizes according to the North American Public Avalanche Danger Scale. Please note: I am not making light the amount of destruction an avalanche can cause. I desire to keep a theme for my book blog. With this ranking system, reviews of books that I have read on my own or with my students will begin to be posted. The description of each category will depend on each book that is read and reviewed.
I am looking forward to sharing with you my thoughts and reflections!
With my students as the selection and voting committees, I had all of the components to run the tournament. At the end of February I asked my students to select their three to five favorite books of all time. I told them that their votes were going to help make the "teams" for our book bracket. #BookBracket2015 had begun! After counting up all the votes, I was met with quite the list of books. Definitely an avalanche of 258 different titles! Fortunately there were 32 top books, so a bracket of 32 was created. Books were seeded based on the number of votes and four regions were established. The stylish bulletin board in the back of my classroom was going to receive a new look, slowly but surely. I say slowly but surely because I only revealed two games (four books involved) per day with my students. I would also post the match ups on my Instagram and Twitter accounts. Each book had a # before it (i.e. #AmericanSniper) and #BookBracket2015 was used in every post. For the month of March, every day that I was in the classroom began with #BookBracket2015. I would recap the previous day's games with a clever pun and reveal the day's match ups. Students would vote via secret ballot for the book that they wanted to win per match up. I collected and counted each vote. By the Elite Eight, I was beginning to get tired of counting the copious scraps of paper, so I opted for hand raising and having students stand on the side of the room for the book they wanted to vote for. I received several complaints from the diehard #BookBracket2015 fanatics. They complained that the integrity of voting was being lost as people were voting based on how their friends were voting. In the Final Four and Championship, we went back to secret ballot voting and a champion was declared: Green Eggs and Ham! Upon reflection, #BookBracket2015 was a success! It allowed me the opportunity to talk about books in my classroom, gave me an avalanche of books to navigate through over the summer, and let me share my passion of reading and sports with my students. My students enjoyed participating in #BookBracket2015 and many have provided me with great feedback for next year. I am looking forward to #BookBracket2016 and who the eventual champion will be! This announcement has a new home! Check it out!
Welcome to "The Avalanche ... of Books" blog! In this first post I hope to answer the usual "first blog post" questions, including who I am, why I am blogging, and why I am calling my blog "The Avalanche ... of Books."
To begin, I am a 2014 graduate of Michigan State University. I completed three degrees in English, history education, and social sciences education. These three degrees led to a lot of required reading. I am three weeks away from completing my teaching internship from MSU's College of Education. I have been teaching several sections of English Language Arts 9 for the past school year at Clarkston Junior High. I have also had the opportunity to observe and learn from other educators in the building. Overall, it has been a great experience and I have learned a ton about myself and teaching! As an English teacher and lifelong learner, I love to read, and I feel like I am in a constant avalanche of books. My bookshelves are teeming with titles ranging from fiction to history to historical fiction to classics to texts focused on teaching and so much more! I am a huge proponent of reflection. During my internship, I constantly asked my students to reflect on the units we accomplished and asked questions centered around what did they did/did not enjoy, what was easy, what was difficult, which type of reading/annotations/assessment did they prefer. I greatly appreciated their details, notes, and feedback. It helped me improve as a teacher both in the moment and for future units and classes. I hope to continue this type of reflection as I move into my first classroom. This blog will be my reflection on the books that I read, along with the classroom implications that they may have. Some posts will be reflections of what I'm doing in the classroom related to books and reading. Other posts will be about books that I read and how I hope to bring them into my classroom. The possibilities and titles are endless (trust me!). |
The Avalanche of Books
As an educator and avid reader, I am constantly hearing about books. I feel like I am being chased by a giant, rolling avalanche of titles and authors. Rating System
5 books - New fave! Read it now!
4 books - Shelf worthy 3 books - Quality read, but ... 2 books - Borrow it 1 book - Skip it Archives
December 2017
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