Last week of Library Lessons for Year 7s - and today was Speed Dating with books.
We covered all the tables with a huge selection of books. This included Fiction across all genres, and a wide range of Non-Fiction. There were also a number of Picture Books and Graphic Novels for our lower literacy students.
The class was handed a sheet to be filled in with the title of the book, the author and then a rating. Truly, Madly, Deeply if you REALLY wanted to read this book, Maybe Another Night Darling if it was okay and Sorry, not my type if it didn't interest you.
They had about 3-4 mins to grab a book, check out the cover and read the blurb and then scan a few pages - and make a decision. Then they moved to another table and another book and continued on.
At the end of an hour most of them had rated around 20 books and there were lots of comments about the different stories, genres and some of the non-fiction materials.
A few students wanted to know why we had 'true' stories in the fiction area instead of the non-fiction, so we explained that it was a fiction story based on something that had really happened - so it wasn't ALL true, just some of it.
One little cherub asked 'So how do you tell then Miss - just make a clever guess?' He looked a little shaken when we told him we read them. 'What, ALL of them?' 'Yes' 'Ahh never mind, Miss - bet they have to pay you REAL good for that'
You have to love Year 7s.
Carrie and I have enjoyed our lessons with the Year 7s and hopefully they will remember some of the basics. At the very least, we hope to see lots of them in here borrowing books, reading magazines and hanging out.
WOW!!... like the title of a book this heading had me intrigued.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fantastic idea to introduce the younger generation to the enjoyment of reading. To show them that books are not just the boring things you have to look at to get that 'stupid' assignment done but they are also something to create a great escape into words of someone else and the imagination of yourself. And who knows that little extra brain power that suddenly gets a jolt might help with handing in a fantastic assignment.
Kids spend time reading 'stuff' on the internet so much that they lose sight of the power of the imagination. There is nothing better than escaping from reality for a small time to read something funny, empowering, dangerous or filled with love. And no matter how hard you try to convince yourself you will never get the same kind of escape from facebook!!