Wednesday, March 24, 2010

About Reader's Workshop: Building on the Information Interest

Yesterday morning I posted about my aims in promoting informational (non fiction) texts in my classroom. 

I organised two big boxes of books up the front of the room yesterday, filled with the very best of my informational books. Everything from An Inconvenient Truth to Ancient Greek history. The students began the lesson by grabbing one of those books and looking through for elements which were different to fiction. We made a list of those elements and then I encouraged them to read one of the books over the next two weeks. Some immediately kept reading, while others put them aside for their novels.

Later in the day, we began making a list of topics they want to read more about. Their list included World War One and Two, to the American Civil War, to Australian landmarks, lots of Ancient History, space, forces, flight, animals, sports and interestingly, September 11. (I keep forgetting that these guys are too young to remember it.)

Today, we're going to talk about the difference in reading fiction and informational texts, and I'll begin book bundling. Our reading workshop is in the library today, so I'll make use of that space and their resources :)

If you have any recommendations for those topics - particularly September 11, please leave a comment - I'm desperate to get good books they'll want to read!

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A Reader's Community

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Queensland, Australia
A Reader's Community is a place to find ideas, information, resources and recommendations about Reader's Workshop.

This Blog has five main types of posts.

About Reader's Workshop - information about Reader's Workshop in my classroom and how it works

Reader's Workshop Tools - resources you can access and use to help you with reader's workshop

Book talks - Book recommendations of two or three books centred around a particular theme

Book letters - in-depth reviews of one particular book

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