Hello, I also teach in California and we are fairly tied to the district's curriculum which is Holt Literature and Language Arts as well as the State Standards. However, in my advancing age I am learning to be the good teacher I once was before NCLB and the standards and the fact that Basic is no longer passing. But I digress. With my honors classes I use high level novels and conduct Book Bites. Students are given 4 weeks to read a novel. The 4th week I hand out a list of 15 to 20 discussion / prompts for the students to prepare for Book Bites. On the day of Book Bites we all volunteer to bring our favorite finger munchies. We use the prompt / questions and discuss the book for that period. I tell them I will be choosing one of these questions for them to respond to in a Response to Literature writing. It will not be a traditional book report, but we will address conflict or theme as well as symbolism, connections and evaluations. Since it was my first year I already want to change and adapt this Book Bites to my Basic Classes using the stories in the Holt . . the better ones, what few their are. My problem is finding enough novels for all the students. Perhaps I could do Literature Circle Book Bites and have group novels in the same genre or author or theme.
You guys give me motivation. Thanks! Mrs. Mac _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive
