YAhooligans 1st Quarter 2017

A few years ago I teamed up with my two middle school colleagues to offer Book Boot Camp to our middle school teachers. The idea spread to all levels and has continued since then. The high school level is called YA Hooligans.

This year we decided to offer YA Hooligans each nine weeks for tech credit of 7 points. Teachers are required to read one YA novel and try one tech tool. This nine week we selected Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham and the tech tool is, Flipgrid. I fell in love with Dreamland Burning this summer. It has a great mix of mystery, history and current events. All of the teachers have come back and told me how much they are enjoying the book.

I shared this article when I emailed the faculty to offer this renewal credit opportunity. I love this article from Todd Nesloney and my fav, Jennifer LaGarde.
I have 8 teachers and 1 teacher's assistant signed up for this round. I'm happy to report that they are from all different subject areas. I love this program because it helps teachers push themselves to read if they are not already readers, exposes them to great YA titles that they can discuss with their students, and helps them earn renewal credit in a way that connects me to them.

The tech tool was an easy choice for me this time. I love Flipgrid. We took on Flipgrid's Back to School challenge and created a grid for all of our faculty and staff. This earned me a free subscription for the year. Yay! And helped me share some tech with my new faculty. I used it as part of an APA lesson and this summer's PD Camp Readamorra.




I'm also planning to use it with Banned Books Week lessons and Teen Read Week. For YA Hooligans teachers are asked to create a Flipgrid account and use the tool with one of their classes.

I love continuing the YA Hooligan program and look forward to a great year of reading with my new faculty and staff.