Some English teachers will relate with the struggle of choice reading as part of the curriculum. For our last unit, I decided to give my students a choice to read whatever they want in class. All of them were very thrilled to be able to choose their own book. The overarching goal is to encourage reading and writing.
My students read books, magazines, graphic novels, articles from reputable sources, … anything that sparked their curiosity and love for reading. We all read for 30 min in class, and then had a book discussion that allowed for conversations about plot, characterization, word choice, figurative language…in a very low stakes setting.
I do want them to work on skills, so I stole the idea of Reading Journals from a previous coworker, which allows students to also choose the skill they want to master. I created rubrics for each choice that include our state’s standards, California, with a comment section for Mastery or In Progress.
My hope is to create readers and writers that extends beyond our regular curriculum. Below you will find the Google Slide that I am using with my students. Credit to my previous co-worker, Maria Stevens, and anyone else who worked on this lesson.
How do you engage readers and writers in your classroom?
Noemi Gonzalez 