Last year, I started a new "end of the year" project with my grade sevens. It was a simple one: out of all the books you read this year, which one had the biggest impact on you? Which was your favourite? There was a lot of discussion, but many students were able to land on a novel right away. This made my heart so happy, as I really didn't have ANY student in my class that said they couldn't think of a novel. Some even struggled to choose between a couple they really loved. Students filled out the following template about their books, feel free to use it in your own classrooms if you are a teacher visiting this page. As with the majority of assignments I assign, I provided students with an example of a book talk where I wrote about a book I love. We also used a few book talks as a mentor text to look for features that made them persuasive and encouraged us to want to pick up and read! With it being the end of the year, I was worried about the groans of, "ugh, another project?" but I didn't seem to get a lot of negative feedback. I was so excited to preview some of their recommendations. Many of their choices came from our book clubs we did this year, which is awesome! It means the texts we have chosen for these kits are engaging, and I hope they continue to peak student interest as the years go on. Others were novels from my personal classroom library that I recommended for students, and some were novels from home. It was exciting to read the book talks about novels I don't own or have never read - I quickly added them to my own 'wish list' and purchased some for the library this year. As we are gearing up for back to school, I made a reading bulletin board outside of my room so that my new grade 7 students can see how last year's class connected to novels, and can immediately get an insight into the books that students loved this year! In addition, each recommendation is going to be compiled into a book that will sit in our classroom library this year. I hope to continue to recommend novels for students, as this is one of my favourite parts of my job, but also to send students to this resource for them to find their next favourite book!
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AuthorHi! I'm Mrs. MP and I teach grade seven English! I'm so excited for you to learn along with me Archives
January 2022
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