No Shhing Here

I love booktalking, but I always find it frustrating; I prep 3-5 booktalks, go into classrooms for the day, and pitch the book. It's great for a couple periods, but after a while, I run out of copies of the books I'm promoting. It feels silly to booktalk books that aren't available to be checked out, and creating booktalks is a TON of work, so it's not practical to just switch to different booktalks in the afternoon.  The "Sell Your Book!" activity is my answer to this problem. It's a fresh, new alternative to speed-dating or book-tasting selection activities.  This book selection activity asks students to "sell" a book by working collaboratively to create a booktalk they present to the class . The lesson takes 40-45 minutes, requires both independent and collaborative work, and harnesses the power of student voice and student choice.  Because STUDENTS are creating NEW booktalks every period, it solves my booktalk problem; we never run out of boo...

One of my personal goals for this school year is to increase student voice in our library program. I have some great mentors in this area (Hello, Sue Kowalski!), but it's not my personal strength. I know it's super-valuable, as it provides students with a sense of ownership and increases engagement, but it's not been as high a priority as it should be.  So, for my first targeted attempt of increasing student voice this year, I built a "Your Book Picks" display. To kick things off, our library helpers all recommended their favorite books.  But I built the display so it's constantly evolving and other students can add their favorites at any time. They simply grab a "thumbs-up" tag from the jar, write their name on it, and then stick it on their favorite book, adding it to the display.  Want to create this display for yourself? Here's a link to a PDF where you can download the materials . I just printed the thumbs on cardstock and then laminated th...