How to Be a Reading Sta(a)r:
How to Be a Reading Sta(a)r:
Crossing Genres with Books
How do you find time to read?
How do you decide what to read?
How do you remember all the books you read?
How can we share books with students?
How can we show students how to connect books?
FAQs
Finding Time to Read
Average person can read 300 words per minute
In one week, that is 31,500 words
In one year, it is 1,512,000 words
Average book is 75,000 words
Can read +20 books a year with only 15 minutes a day
More than 1000 extra books in a lifetime
How do you decide what to read?
Award Lists, Starred Reviews, Favorites
May I have the envelope, please?
First, some new books
Notables: Picture Books, Fiction
Notables: Picture Books, Fiction
Notables: Middle Grade Fictiongrades 3-5
Notables: Middle Grade Fictiongrades 3-5
Notables: Middle Grade Nonfiction
Notables: Older Grade Fiction
Notables: Older Grade Fiction
Notables: Older Grades Nonfiction
Notables: Older Grades Nonfiction
Notables: Older Grades Nonfiction
Starred Reviews
Best of the best, according to some
Favorites
LITERATURE. Literature, books
Crossing genre boundaries
Locating content area books
Reading across texts
Mentor texts for reading and writing
Other Topics for Today
Redefining genres, forms, formats
Crossing genre boundaries
How to put more together
Start with Titlewave or Amazon searches
Keep blog posts for reading and use tags
Search other blogs
Use Twitter and hashtags
Work in teams
Global warming
Bullying
Social justice
Prejudice/racism
Elections
Themes/Topics to Explore
Science, math, social studies, art, music, etc.
Locating content area materials
Childrens Book Council
Notable Trade Books in Science
Notable Trade Books in Social Studies
NCTE
Notable Trade Books in Language Arts
Orbis Pictus Award
ALSC
Sibert
YALSA
Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults
Some Resources
http://www.nsta.org/publications/ostb/
Notable Trade Books in Science
http://www.socialstudies.org/notable
Notable Trade Books in Social Studies
http://www.childrensliteratureassembly.org/notables.html
Notable Trade Books in LA
http://www.ncte.org/awards/orbispictus
Orbis Pictus
http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/sibertmedal
Sibert Award
http://www.ala.org/yalsa/nonfiction
Excellence in Nonfiction
Reading across texts
Making connections
For reading and writing
Mentor texts
6 Reading Habits to Develop
in Your First Year at Harvard
Interrogating Texts:
Previewing:
Look around the text before you start reading.
Prefatory material
Text layout
Flap summary
Blurbs on back cover
TOC if present
Chapter titles
Chapter Titles
Papa was a rolling stone
The futures so bright, I gotta wear shades
Ballroom blitz
Live and let die
Hold em closer, Necromancer
Text arrangement
Knowledge of Author
2. Annotating:
Dialogue with yourself,
the author, and the issues and ideas at stake
Annotating using post-it notes
Annotating using e-readers
Annotating using symbols
Annotating using summary words
Annotating using questions
Annotating using post-it notes
Highlight
Make notes
Look up words
Annotating using e-readers
Develop symbol list with students
C-character
T-theme
???
Annotating using symbols
Pausing to write one word summary of the chapter
Pausing to write down two adjectives describing readers
emotions
Pausing to write three gerunds about events from chapter
Pausing to write four word phrase central to events of
chapter
One word summary, synonym
Annotating using summary words
Key Questions
What would happen if the main character were of the opposite
sex?
Where is the story set?
What does the title tell you about the book? Does it tell the
truth?
Would you film this in B&W or color and why?
If you had to design a new cover, what would it look like?
Annotating using questions
3. Outline, summarize, analyze.
Take information apart
Examine the parts
Reassemble in own words
Reassemble in your own way
Take it apart & reassemble
Six Word Teaser Book Reports
Six Word Memoirs Become
From Mr. Sees class @ Bookgosh
Mystery
Fantasy
Werewolf
Love
School
Fights
4. Look for repetitions and patterns:
Recurring images
Repeated words, phrases, types of examples, or illustrations
Consistent ways of characterizing people, events, or issues
Consistency: characters, events
Recurring words, phrases
Recurring images
Examples from YA
repetition
repetition
Application
5. Contextualize:
After youve finished reading,
put the reading in perspective.
One word: milieu
Milieu OF the text
Transaction with Text
Some Examples from New Books
Poetic bio
Feminist bio
Putting it in context
6. Compare and Contrast:
Fit this text into an ongoing dialogue
Connections
Responses
Ranking/rating
Providing some guidance for readers
Now we are back to reading ladders
Different ages and stages
Options with similar themes
Select theme or topic
Search Titlewave and Amazon for titles
Arrange titles from simplest to most complex
Provide choices on each rung
Allow students to add to the ladder titles
Constructing Ladders
determine the meaning of grade-level academic English words
derived from Latin, Greek, or other linguistic roots and
affixes
Addressing TEKS
infer the implicit theme of a work of fiction, distinguishing
theme from the topic
Addressing TEKS
compare and contrast the historical and cultural settings of two
literary works
Addressing TEKS
Anti-Semitism
Holocaust
Comparing settings
Biography
Contemporary Fiction
Twain then and now
Biography
Fantasy
A Dickens of a Tale or Two
Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Poetry. Students
understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about the
structure and elements of poetry and provide evidence from text to
support their understanding. Students are expected to explain how
figurative language (e.g., personification, metaphors, similes,
hyperbole) contributes to the meaning of a poem.
Addressing TEKS
Poetry Resources
http://poetryforchildren.blogspot.com/
summarize the elements of plot development (e.g., rising action,
turning point, climax, falling action, denouement) in various works
of fiction;
Addressing TEKS
interpret factual, quantitative, or technical information
presented in maps, charts, illustrations, graphs, timelines,
tables, and diagrams
Addressing TEKS
recognize how various techniques influence viewers'
emotions;
Visual/Media Literacy
From the limbs of ancient live oaks moccasins hung like fat
black sausages -- which are sometimes called boudin noir, black
pudding or blood pudding, though why anyone would refer to a
sausage as pudding is hard to understand and it is even more
difficult to divine why a person would knowingly eat something made
from dried blood in the first place -- but be that as it may, our
tale is of voodoo and foul murder, not disgusting food.
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest: 2011 Results
Wearily approaching the murder scene of Jeannie and Quentin Rose
and needing to determine if this was the handiwork of the Scented
Strangler--who had a twisted affinity for spraying his victims with
his signature raspberry cologne--or that of a copycat, burnt-out
insomniac detective Sonny Kirkland was sure of one thing: hed have
to stop and smell the Roses.
Within the smoking ruins of Keister Castle, Princess Gwendolyn
stared in horror at the limp form of the loyal Centaur who died
defending her very honor; You may force me to wed, she cried at the
leering and victorious Goblin King, but youll never be half the man
he was.
As his small boat scudded before a brisk breeze under a sapphire
sky dappled with cerulean clouds with indigo bases, through cobalt
seas that deepened to navy nearer the boat and faded to azure at
the horizon, Ian was at a loss as to why he felt blue.
WINNER
Cheryls mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine,
chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell
onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.
