Claudia's comments (member since Aug 20, 2008)

Claudia's comments from the High School English Teachers group.

Lisa, I never thought of Starbucks for gift certificates. I've tried working with our local bookstores...all parts of chains...to give kids gift certificates. Has anyone had any luck with something like that? I need to think of a way to convince the book stores my kids really DO buy books...maybe a survey of the students? You've given me something else to think about, tho..food!!

Our school offers a reading elective, called Reading for Pleasure. Over 300 kids a year sign up, many of them multiple times. The few who begin the semester thinking this will be a 'blow off' find out they really WILL read and they really WILL write. But with the free choice to read whatever BOOKS they choose, most fall into the system so quickly.

Right now kids are reading Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why...Asher is ON goodreads, by the way. They're also reading Ellen Hopkins' new book, Identical.

Chris Crutcher and Sarah Dessen (also on goodreads) continue to be popular with my high school students. We won't even talk about the Twilight series...I must have five of those books in every class...Oops. I talked about it.

Free choice is alive and well in Norman, OK!

I love this thread. Katie, I don't know MEG or Always Running, but I can nod in agreement to the others.

Since I have 2000+ books in my room, I'm very interested in the ones that get stolen: Perks of Being a Wallflower is the all-time winner. I've probably bought 20 copies...and I have two ratty ones. Into the Wild disappears with regularity, all of Sarah Dessen's, Ellen Hopkins' books, the Twilight books sprout legs and walk away. I always consider that a ringing endorcement of the book's power. I Am the Messenger disappears too. I would love to hear from others...

I LIKE to get into content right away. I think it sets the tone for the year: work will be done here...it'll be fun and appropriate; but it will be academic work. The year I taught English 4, I borrowed an activity from another teacher. We read "Lady of Shallot" and studied three of the paintings depicting scenes from the poem. Kids had to write a literary analysis essay, comparing the poem and the pictures, analyzing the effects of each...and that was turned in within the first week of school. Yes, it was hard to catch up the kids who were transferred in after the first couple of days, but I put the students on notice right away they'd be reading and writing and discussing. This activity also bonded us as we talked about the paintings, finding the details that enriched our essays.

I worry when we wait for our rolls to settle down that we've wasted valuable teaching time, and let the kids think they'll be coasting for the rest of the year.

I now teach an elective, Reading for Pleasure, and kids wrote me a letter of introduction and did a book scavenger hunt the first day...then we read for about 10 minutes.