Summer Reading: Book Love Foundation

I want to encourage my students to be lifelong learners, especially through reading. Reading allows us to learn new information, build empathy, relax, and so many other benefits. If I am to offer recommendations to my students for any of these reasons, I must continue to be a lifelong reader too.

That's why I joined Book Love Foundation's Summer Book Club for the first time this year, and as I wrap up the last week of this experience, I'm sharing why I plan to do this again!

What is Book Love Foundation?

If you teach ELA, you have probably heard of Penny Kittle who is the founder of this foundation, a teacher, and an author herself. Kittle believes in the power of reading and created The Book Love Foundation to help other teachers to create or enhance their classroom libraries so that there are diverse books for students. Yes, The Book Love Foundation raises money to present grants to teachers to buy book for their classrooms. Even better: It is organized by volunteers! This means every donation goes towards books for students.

Do you want to learn more? Check out the Book Love Foundation website to learn more about the organization, to see how they've impacted classrooms, and more. Their Summer Book Club is their biggest fundraiser to go towards this 

How does Summer Book Club work?

Five weeks. Four books. Daily written discussions. Author and education interviews.

You get access to all of this by joining the Summer Book Club through their website. When you register, you get the ability to choose what grade level of books (high school, middle school, elementary, or all) to receive the books - no shopping on your part! - along with the swag, which this year included a lightweight cooler, notebook, pen, and metal bookmark.

Already have the books? Or want to mix-and-match the grade levels? You can choose to have access to the online content.

Once the Book Club begins, each book typically gets one focused week to be discussed. You can either read the books prior to the week or throughout the week. During that same week, the author has been available for a live session that is later posted for those who weren't able to join at the scheduled time. There are other conversations with teachers, literacy experts, and authors to explore our interests and needs as educators.

This design makes it easy to tailor your Book Club experience to your teaching and your level of commitment for the summer.

The online experience takes place on a less known platform Mighty Network. The benefit of this is to help us be focused on our Book Club without being pulled into the notifications from other social media platforms.

What are the benefits of Summer Book Club?

For my first summer, I chose to receive all grade levels for a couple of reasons: I teach both middle and high school students; I want to increase my picture book collection; I believe in supporting this foundation. Here are three benefits I have experienced in the past four weeks.

Book exposure:

My first benefit is increasing my book exposure. I had only heard of one of the high school choices before registering: Me (Moth) by Amber McBride. This meant that I was exposed to nonfiction (The Other Talk by Brendan Kiely), a graphic novel (Surviving the City by Tasha Spillett and Natasha Donovan), and picture books (We Can: Portraits of Power by Tyler Gordon and Dad Bakes by Katie Yamasaki). 

Some of the books also shared topics that I am not well-read on or did not have text versions appropriate for the readers in my classroom, such as Kiely's book sharing his experiences of white privilege and Spillett's graphic novel that brings attention to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women while also demonstrating strength and beauty of the indigenous culture. 

We often are suggested books similar to what we have been reading, so it has been good to have these books not only recommended and to have the encouragement of a book club to read them.

Your pace:

The book club is structured for a book a week (or three if you're interested in all three age-levels), but once the book club gets started, you are able to go at your own pace. Some readers have finished reading the books even before the book club began. Some are reading them at the daily pace of the discussions. And there are those who are like me and try to keep the weekly pace but am catching up at the beginning of the next week. I know that at least one novel will carry into next month.

This is fantastic to make it work for you around your family vacations, long weekends at the cabin, your summer job, your children's nap times, or whatever! 

Access to the discussions and author talks is all available to us afterwards, so we can take our time with the books, take a break, or wait until we're ready to look at a specific book for our class.

Your choice of involvement:

Want to support this foundation and have new books in your classroom? Great!

Want to read some good books and listen to the authors? Great!

Want to come look at the discussions later in the summer or year for lesson ideas? Great!

Want to answer every discussion question and join in on the live chats? Great!

This is flexible so it can be the professional development you want for the summer. 

Just getting started!

The Book Love Foundation also has professional development opportunities that I can take into the school year, such as the Book Love Podcast, resources for reading, research, and more. This Summer Book Club is just the beginning.

Personalized Learning: Ideas to Get Started

 This summer, I attended Northern Cass Personalized Learning Institute and there I was both validated and inspired to continue providing students with voice and choice in their learning to give them the skills to be lifelong learners. Here I want to share with you some ways that you can get started with personalized learning in your own ELA classroom.

Create a Unit Menu

The concept of a menu is one that I have been using in my classroom for the past two years. A menu is a collection of texts on a specific topic and/or theme that I teach in a course. These are organized on a format that I can make available to students, such as Padlet. These are fluid; I am constantly adding sources and reorganizing them as I learn of my sources and try to challenge myself.

Here are a few examples that I currently have:

American Soldiers

Immigration Stories 

Having a menu allows me to do several things in a class: I can respond to their needs or interests and choose a type of text that presents content in either an accessible or challenging manner. Depending on class assignments, students may choose their own sources made available through the menu.

If you already use a similar practice in your classroom, you could consider creating a self-paced unit.

Self-Paced Units

This particular suggestion was inspired by a breakout session by Beth Head of Northern Cass School.

Once you have your resources organized, you could prepare a self-paced unit. It is important to communicate with students the importance of soft and hard deadlines along with suggested pace to maintain progress. 

There are a few ways that you can do this with students. One suggestion would be to create a packet for your students that provides them with all of the materials regarding the unit of study. Another is to prepare a specific menu in which students can choose how they learn a particular concept, whether by reading a chapter of their textbook or an article, listening to a lecture on YouTube, conducting an experiment, or working with the teacher in a small group. In this way, students can monitor their preferred learning or use a variety of sources to learn about a particular topic.

You can help monitor this with your students by having them set daily or weekly goals and submit a reflection on how they have been able to accomplish those goals. I prefer the format of Exit Tickets that are formatted to read quickly.

Design Rubrics and Assignments with Students

This particular suggestion was inspired by a breakout session led by Heidi Eckart.

Part of personalized learning requires communication between the teacher and students about the relevance of the content. If students find the work relevant, they will engage with it and recognize the importance of learning and practicing the skills. By asking students to be part of designing rubrics or assignments, they are being asked to reflect on the content skills they have learned and how to apply them affectively for their learning goals. It is also possible to get feedback from students that suggests a variety of formats that they can display their progress of the skills from the unit too.

Northern Cass Personalized Learning Institute is held annually so check their website in the future if you're interested in learning more about using personalized learning in your classroom or district.

3 Easy Student Reflection Practices

One goal of education is to develop students into lifelong learners. To be a lifelong learners, we must encourage our students to be reflective. 

Each school year, I set one specific goal for myself. For the year 2021-22, that goal was to implement more student reflection.

Here are 3 easy strategies to implement into your classroom to help students reflect on their own learning.

 

Entrance & Exit Ticket

This particular practice is best used on work days or in the workshop model. When students understand the objectives of the assignment, they must break it down into steps. 

To start the class period, provide students with the Entrance & Exit Ticket. For their Entrance, they should write a specific goal: What do they plan to accomplish during this class period?

Before their Exit, students should respond with a brief reflection of their goal: Did they accomplish it? Why or why not? What's next?

Leaving this open-ended allows them to honestly reflect without a graded expectation and also creates minimal prep work.

Glow-Grow-Goal

This is an excellent reflection at the end of a unit and asks students to do a 3-part reflection:

• Glow: What are you most proud of in this project? Why?
• Grow: In what way did this project challenge you? What skills did you improve?
• Goal: Looking to the future, what do you hope to continue to improve or to learn more about?

This particular reflection is beneficial to help students see that the learning isn't done, but acknowledges that there is more possible in the growth of our skills and/or knowledge.

Self-grading

Allowing students to complete their own grading can be intimidating; however, it helps them focus on their skill level. There are a few ways to allow students to self-grade, so choose the option that is most appropriate for your students and the assignment. Research and my own observations have shown me that this is an effective best practice.

One option is to provide students with a checklist. This has them reflect on the process and completion. Here is an excerpt from an essay checklist.

Another option is to provide a rubric with the objectives on a scale with descriptions for the highest and lowest expectations. Here is an example of a self-grade rubric from a blog assignment.

Another option is to give students your a checklist, have them write a self-reflection such as: What did you learn from this project? Consider the skills learned and practiced throughout this unit. After reviewing their checklist and reflection, ask them what score or grade they have earned on this particular assignment.

These 3 easy student reflection practices can encourage your students to monitor their own learning throughout the school year and hopefully carry the practice into their lifelong habits. 

Additional reading about student reflection:

Culturize by Jimmy Casas

The Innovator's Mindset by George Couros

"Treating Reflection as a Habit, Not an Event" by Andrew Miller

"Joy in School" by Steven Wolk