For some of the teachers they wanted books pulled that had two or more copies so that students could team up to read and discuss together. That explained why I had so many books with multiple copies when I was organizing books this summer.
Here are a few pictures of students coming in to select a book. I organized the books by genre to help them.
We do have one teacher that uses a system similar to AR. I'm not a fan, but I am trying not to burn bridges before I cross them. For her classes I referred to a list of every book we had that had a quiz on this website, pulled the ones that I thought they would like and organized them by genre. The students in these classes are not in Honors or AP so many of them do not like to read. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to find something they liked. She has expressed interest in trying lit circles after Winter break. I'm hoping that she will and I will do everything I can to make it a success.
I'm doing the same kind of thing. I don't have to have multiple copies though. The first book, I did a speed dating with books activity with each table a different genre. For the second checkout, I pull a variety of genres and put them on the tables for them to browse. It is overwhelming for some students to face all those shelves with thousands of books. They don't know where to begin. I have featured books on the tops of all my shelves. I've noticed that some students will always pick one of those. It's just easier for them.
ReplyDeleteAgreed! I wasn't sure if the browsing would be the same in high school, but it is.
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