Get Passionate!

My husband gets excited when I talk about being passionate, then he realizes I’m talking about being passionate about books!  Isn’t that what we all want for all students?  We want them to get lost inside the pages, not wanting to put down their latest read.  We want them to share that excitement with others and talk about their new favorite book that we all must get.  It gets even better when they lift words from the pages of those books and share the quotes, so we can savor the words. 

We’ve put a couple of things in place at my school to foster and share this passion.  At any point during the day, you can see students clustered around a bulletin board looking over the latest book recommendations from their peers. We have a board where students can recommend books to each other by taking a slip and recording the title, author, and telling why they are recommending the book.  We post these on the bulletin board and encourage each other to check the board when we are ready for a new read!

Click here for a copy of this FREE book recommendation form.

Another way we share our passion is by displaying the titles of our current or favorite reads outside our classroom doors.  Each teacher has a clear pocket that hangs on a contact hook with an “Ask me about…” page inside.  We tuck in a picture of our book cover or the actual book itself.  This has encouraged student and staff conversation about books.  What more could you ask for?

A few ingenious folks have used this same “Ask me about…” idea to teach vocabulary words, generate student excitement for learning a foreign language with a new word each day, and encourage different ways to solve math problems.  I’m sure there are even more things you could do!

Click here for a copy of this FREE Ask Me About page!

To capture favorite quotes from our reading or our own creations that we pen (see Shelley’s post, "Eight Great Quotes" from February 15th, for some wonderful ideas), we’ve created another display.  This has been a great way to share the words that touch us, without interrupting instruction or reading time.  Students know they can write down their quotes and stick them in our basket to be shared during those filler moments like lining up for lunch or the few minutes before dismissal.  After our quotes are shared, they get posted on the board!

We want our students to read, read, and then read some more!  It is our hope that we are creating a passion that will last a lifetime!  

Click here for a FREE download of this goal setting sheet!

I would love to get some more ideas to keep the passion alive (remember, we’re talking about literacy!).  Comment and share!

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