AuburnChick's Adventures

Mondays are not always fun…can we all just agree?

They mark the end of relaxing weekends and the beginnings of long, tiring weeks…especially when you are a teacher!

That is why I was pleasantly surprised when my Monday went swimmingly yesterday.

Although we’ve been in school a week now, I had yet to get my students reading.

Oh, they were starting to get excited, mind you, looking at the books on my bookshelves, but I’d held them back so we could review procedures and get to know one another better through various activities.

Yesterday was finally the day, though…the day when we did our Read Around.  You might know this as a book pass.

I filled five baskets with books, and students had a minute and a half to two minutes to preview the books in the basket.

I had given each student a copy of a Read Around form from the book, Igniting a Passion to Read, by Steven Layne…a reproducible he provides in the book.

I had instructed my students NOT to keep any books for the independent reading we would be starting today.  They were simply to preview, list the titles of any books that interested them, and when the time was up, pass the baskets around to other tables.

Now, I must be doing something different because ALL of my classes got very excited as they began previewing books.

I don’t know if they had been skimming from the enthusiasm I’d been showing since Day 1 for the various books around my room.

It could have been that as I walked around and provided bits and pieces of various plots, gleaned from personally reading the books, they grew even more enthusiastic.

MANY begged to be allowed to check out books, but I had to hold them back.

I had to have enough of my better books to share with ALL of my classes.

So the first two classes reluctantly agreed.

Then, my sixth period came in, and Lord Have Mercy, but you would have thought that Christmas had arrived.

I could not keep myself from being pulled in, so I spontaneously announced that I would allow them to check books out.

I explained that as my last class of the day, they would probably find themselves getting what was left over from book chats I’d be doing throughout the year.

To make up for that, I let them have first dibs on my books.

They.

Went.

To.

Town.

I have a new procedure this year where I have a checkout binder in the back of my room.  It is divided by class periods, and students can fill out the form to let me know which books they have and when they checked them out.

I have often found myself unable to locate certain books, uncertain which students are reading them.

My sixth period class could not get a hold of the binder quick enough, and it made the rounds from one table to the next with quite a few of the eighteen students checking out books to take home and read…

Many of my Allison van Diepen and Jennifer Brown books got checked out.

My name will be mud with my second and fourth period classes.

In fact, one young lady had pitched a fit earlier in the day because she insisted that she HAD to read Thousand Words.

I was so nervous about the yelling she was sure to do that I stopped by Books a Million to buy another copy of the book.

Unfortunately, my store had a crappy supply of Brown’s books…

There was ONE freaking copy of her newest book, which I refuse to pay $18 for.  I’ll wait for the paperback.

There were a few copies of Hate List on a display, but this was not the book my students were fighting over.

I’m peeved at the sucky supply (do you like my alliteration?), and I made a suggestion to the cashier that they would probably be inundated with young ladies looking for these books, and that the store needed to put them in stock.

*Ahem*

I did pick up a couple of books on the clearance shelf…

My teacher discount allowed me to get these books for under $5.

I’m hoping I can coax my students to try some different authors like Jay Asher, John Green, and Neal Shusterman.

I have a feeling that, unlike previous years, I won’t have to beg my students to read during their silent reading time each day.

I’m excited just knowing what we are all in store for!!

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This is the last of these posts…finally!!!!!

I do hope you’ve enjoyed looking at the books that inspired struggling readers.  I promise that if MY students liked them, ANYONE would like them.  Teachers in my department almost have to stand on our heads to cajole our kids to read.

The keys are personal enthusiasm from someone who can vouch, from experience, that a book is good, a great author, short chapters (practical but necessary), and encouragement to stick with a book, even during a boring chapter.

On to the projects!

This was a very short book and an easy read for my student…a gifted football player who was easily distracted by thoughts of college football. The fact that he finished this book and looked for more in this book series made me happy. I have a picture of him working, side-by-side with a young lady, on this project, truly engaged in what he was doing. I love this young man to bits and his amazingly supportive mama, and I cannot wait to see him in the NFL draft one day. I’m also going to be waiting for my shout-out, which he’s promised to give me. 🙂

This is still a popular series with some of my students!! They really enjoy comparing the books to the movies, and we have good discussions about which ones are better!

The third or fourth project I’ve posted for this book. It was so popular, and I enjoyed looking at the projects and the various ways that students interpreted the book!

This is another book that is popular with the young men I teach. I really want to read it too! The gentleman who completed this project HATED to read, bless his heart. He did enjoy this book though.

This series…so popular with my 6th/7th period block…all because of one young MAN who read the first one, talked about it so much, and got nearly all of the girls in that class to read the series. They talked about this series ALL THE TIME, and it even made it onto the original young guy’s Instagram feed. The kids love the drama of it, and it obviously appeals to young men and young ladies (a gal completed the project you see above).

When I see this project, I smile, BIG TIME. The young lady who made it took a lot of time with it. She had eclectic taste in books. Thank heavens I knew this from teaching her the previous year, for I tried to buy books that appealed to her preferences as well. This project makes me smile because I’ll never forget how hard this student worked on EVERYTHING I asked her to do in class.

Had to show you the bonus feature of this project. Because my student didn’t have enough space to include everything on the checklist I was using for grading, she came up with this ingenious way to add them…a flap!!!

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More book advertisements from my students (click the pictures to embiggen)…

A compelling book by one of my favorite YA writers. The book is deep, let me tell you, but written quite cleverly and with a wit that will make you chuckle throughout. I’m going to do this as a Read Aloud this coming school year. The vocabulary, in places, is advanced, so I’ll tie in lessons as well. This student, as you can see, enjoyed it immensely!

Another popular book with my students. It is written in prose form, which appeals to many teenagers. The book, from what I’ve heard from my students, is gritty and raw.

This is a book that my male students gravitate toward. Two of my students did their book advertisements about it.

This is the second book advertisement for this book. What I love is the picture of the main character, whose hair was vividly described and constantly referred to in the books. The student who created this project flew through the series!

The third book advertisement for this novel. I love how each project depicted different items. Take a look at the oxygen canister…so pivotal in the book!!! This novel never stayed on the bookshelf!

Students rave about this book, even though many have read it by the time they get to high school. I simply must add it to my list!

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This is Part 2 in a series of posts dedicated to the book advertisements my students made as their final project.

This student is a friend’s son. She requested that he be in my class…not a little bit of pressure on me to have him do well. 🙂 He was a joy to teach, and his taste in books was eclectic and spoke of an old soul. He ASKED me to buy the North and the South trilogy. I’d read these books when I was a teenager, so I was happy to oblige. Everything on this poster meant something, as he explained to the class…even the line across the middle of the paper, which symbolized the division that existed between the main characters, best friends, in the book as well as the citizens of the country. He used different colors to represent each side as well. The class adored this student and his quirky humor (his pants actually split during a tornado drill, and he LAUGHED it off instead of getting embarrassed).

Harry Potter made an appearance this year. One of my boys had read his way through half of the series by the time June arrived.

Bone is a graphic novel series that one of my students could not put down the last month of school. I frequently found him reading instead of doing his work. It was a great problem to have!

Legend was a series that was popular with the boys. I recently finished reading it after this young man insisted, for months, that I give it a go. It was similar to the Divergent series but with more likeable characters…softer in nature. The third book proved a satisfying end to the series.

This student read one Jay Asher book and was hooked. This is a favorite of mine simply because of the concept…being able to see into your future (two teenagers install America Online, log in, and are taken to their Facebook profiles…ten years before Facebook is invented). The student was drawn to the question of what you would do if you learned what your future held.

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Truly do I wish I could record some of the conversations that transpire between me and my students.

I want to replay some of them over and over.

Thank goodness for this blog, which has become a snapshot of the things I want to hold close to my heart.

Here are a few comments I overheard yesterday.

Before school started, one of my students popped in.  He was on his way to take FCAT because he is an eleventh grader.  As I began wishing him good luck, he proudly opened his backpack and displayed the HEALTHY snacks he had packed for the day…carrot slices and peanut butter crackers!  He also told me that his friend, another student of mine who won’t be testing until next week, had MADE him eat breakfast that included PROTEIN!!!!

I.

Kid.

You.

Not.

Later, I saw one of my students walking past my classroom before second period.  He was on his way to another class and would be seeing me later, but he said, as he made eye contact, “Mrs. AuburnChick, I went to bed an hour earlier like you said.”

You see, I’ve been asking my students to eat healthier and get more rest in preparation for the FCAT test they will be taking next week.

In fact, nutrition has been an ongoing theme in my room all year as they inquire about my vegan lifestyle.

These are conversations that most of my students do not have with their parents.

Changing topics…

My second period class was taking their five-minute break between classes (we are together for second and third periods).  One of my students proudly announced that he had read twelve books this year!  Another student chimed in by saying she had read six.

They’ve been keeping lists.  I had no idea!

Another student told me he needed a new series of books to read.  He’s read Neal Shusterman’s Skinjacker and Unwind series.  He recently finished the I am Number 4 series, written by Pittacus Lore.  He’s read a number of other books this year as well, but he likes series, where he can establish long-term relationships with characters and story lines.

Three female students were discussing how they liked/disliked a prominent male character in one of the books they’ve passed around.

One of the girls said she didn’t like him because he has one dimple, which students in my classroom have been teasing her about, saying they would make the perfect couple because she has one dimple and the character’s dimple is on the other side.

Ahhh…teenagers.  You’ve gotta love them!

I love listening in on these conversations.  They reflect the atmosphere in my classroom…one that has fostered a love for reading…a camaraderie among vastly different teenage personalities…a sense of accomplishment.

This is not something that has existed to this extent in my previous three years of teaching.

These things show me that my ability to connect with my students…read their interests and supply their needs…is improving with each year I am in the classroom.

Go ahead and be envious.

I’m doing a job that pays these kinds of dividends every single day, and I am a fortunate gal indeed!

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