I firmly believe that books talk to us and help shape us, we eventually become what we read. Every child is one book away of fall in love with reading, we just need to help them find the magic key. I encourage self selected reading, but I also want to make it purposeful and use it to build comprehension and communication skills. At the beginning of the year, we started using FlipGrid as a response system to share what we read. But many times the responses were basic, students just restated the book cover and didn't show their comprehension. So I thought that giving them a more authentic audience (another class) will encourage them to prepare their presentations better. Book Talks round 1 was born, each student will select a picture book, read it, draft a persuasive piece using a graphic organizer and present it to our class, our neighbor class and be rated by their peers.
Once again, my wonderful librarian helped me collect several picture books, I tried to gather a variety of subjects and genres that would appeal to my students. Side note, the initial idea was to use the Digital library, but since it was the first time doing this protocol I decided to better use paper copies. I provided a graphic organizer in both languages to help students organize their thinking. I modeled a presentation with a couple of books, and off they were.
It was beautiful to see them choose their books, everyone was excited an eager to read. After they've read, they drafted their ideas and we conferenced about them. They had the chance to read it to a friend to collect feedback and make adjustments. These conversations were very useful to find emphasize the concept of genre, literary elements and summary. When they were ready, they presented to our class, the audience had a rating ticket that evaluated the content, clarity and preparation. Once students received the feedback, they presented to other class. As an extension, a few students were able to film themselves using a green screen, and we edit the videos as a Book Talk show.
Most students were able to at least present to our class, some needed more scaffolding than others. I considered this an especially important opportunity for my students to reinforce the speaking domain in an authentic setting. However, the persuasive piece was not accomplished, and several students struggled summarizing. I would like to continue this protocol periodically, maybe the next time we can focus on graphic novels and biographies.