Book Talks and Read Alouds: It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Shelia at Book Journeys. Jen Vincent of Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee Moye of Unleashing Readers give the Meme a kid lit spin. I encourage you to visit others participating. Keep a notepad handy or a window with your Amazon wish list open; you'll find lots of great titles to read.

Today I meet my new students. It's the first day of school and I'm a little nervous. Will I remember students' names? Do I have enough planned? The first day is what it is. Often class periods rubber band between 15 and 47 minutes. It all depends on homeroom, a special occasion reserved for the first day of each semester. We send students to homeroom to pass out schedules and post those that remain unclaimed on our classroom doors for administrators to gather. That part takes some doing on a ninety-five acre campus. It takes time, but we get an instant idea of how many students do not report to school based on unclaimed schedules. Also, students missing a class period are quickly located and sent off to see guidance counselors. Sometimes students are antsy to get the day going and I know they will chaff at some new rules put in place this year, so I thought I'd lighten the mood with Offill's 17 Things I'm Not Allowed to Do Anymore.

With my own students, those I will see everyday, I plan to read pieces this week to build our reading and writing community. I'm going to start with The Night Bookmobile.

I likely won't read Niffenegger's The Night Bookmobile in its entirety, but I will read enough to taste the language and get a sense of the character's discovery. I plan use  it to frame students' thinking about their own reading histories.

Pat Conroy lived in Orlando for a time growing up. There is a wonderful scene describing his mother and our downtown library in his recent book, My Life Reading. I'll pull a few scenes from the book as we get started with our own reading narratives. Conroy's voice, description and rich vocabulary will make a good model for the kind of writing I'd like us to do this week.

The opening two poems of Salas' Book Speak will be segue perfectly into this week's initial Book Pass.

On the book talking side of things, I've planned to start sharing the Florida Teen Read titles by week's end. I'm including a book talk row in my lesson plans for the start of school. I know as we go through the year, the books I want to share are not as planned ahead of time--I share titles I read each week and pull favorites from the classroom library--but we'll see. I'll begin with a few favorites that will serve double duty as writing models. Always a bonus when I can make a read aloud work on many levels.

Happy first day of school!