The Assignment

The Literature Blog project has been launched. I was pleasantly surprised at the reception by the students; most seemed to be - well, not excited - but at least no groaning and complaining. The assignment went like this:

English 10 – Literature Blog
Step 1: You will be choosing a book to read. This book should be age and ability compatible (No Junie B. Jones books) and something you haven’t read before (That rules out Harry Potter and Twilight for many of you). It can be fiction or nonfiction. This entire project will require you to read approximately 300 pages (100 pages per week); you may choose a book with at least this many pages or you can plan to read a couple of shorter books. Keep in mind – it isn’t very often that you get to read a book of your own choosing in English class: Choose wisely. You will have no excuse for not wanting to read since you were able to choose your own book.

Step 2: You will be setting up a blog where you will discuss your book. This blog is where you will be graded in this project. You will be graded on the content of your blog as well as on the mechanical engineering of your blog (spelling, punctuation, grammar). You will have class time to work on your blog, but you can also work on it at home or the library if you have access to a computer at these places.
The blog will consist of a summary of what you read, observations and opinions of what you read (Do you like it? Why? Do you NOT like it? Why?) , and occasionally responses to questions that I will supply for you.
You will be creating approximately 10 entries to your blog. We will be alternating days between reading and working in the computer lab.

So…when we come back to school on the Monday following Thanksgiving break, you will need:
• A book to read.
• An e-mail address
• An explanation (at least in your mind) of why you chose the book you did.

The most common questions were "How long will the blogs have to be?" and "Will we have time in class to work on this?" Of course, when we were going over the part where they have "no excuse for not wanting to read," I had one student correct me. His excuse was he doesn't LIKE to read...ANYTHING. Next we went to the library and the kids picked books. I had some kids choose books like Twilight - some had them at home and were waiting for time in their busy schedules to read it. Some chose nonfiction. Most found something they would be interested in. I also had them write down the title of their books and whether or not they have an e-mail address.

I also spoke to the IT lady, Mrs. Johnson. We have several obstacles to beginning the blogs - such as all blogs are blocked at our school. Also, if a student doesn't already have an e-mail address - there were only 2 or 3 - they can't just make one on hotmail or something because those are blocked, too. As of right now, she will have to manually unblock these when we are working on them which requires her to be present at those times. Since she is at a different building every other morning, we have to match our blogging to her schedule. It looks like we won't be able to begin until Tuesday.

My favorite moment so far...when a student asked "Why are we doing this?" I love it when I have an answer - a good answer - for that question. It seems that the new Iowa Core Curriculum includes students reading books of their own choosing AND technology. Oh ya - Iowa Department of Education, you finally gave me something I can use.