How you design a book talk–or ask your students to do book talks–depends on a lot of things, but one outcome we’re hoping for is to get students to consider new books. So student ownership of the book talk is key. While we may have many good ideas for how to structure a book talk (there are teachers who do magic tricks and hands-on activities rather than the four-minute spiel), student ways and means are always good to study. If we let their methods lead us, who knows how many students who aren’t reading on the regular might be inspired to try a book, once they see the buzz, hype, and joy of peers who are #bookobsessed #bibliophiles?
Check out Team Epic Read’s version of a book talk from an over-the-moon teen blogger who loooooooved YA author John Green’s latest, Turtles All the Way Down. Note: salty language included, better seen by older teens. And note the play-by-play immediacy that this freewheeling numbered list creates, inviting readers to get this reader’s experience in a truly visceral way.
When one of your students is blown away by a book, it’s a great moment to stop the presses of normal classroom activity and give them a few minutes to do this: share 144 reactions (complete with numbers, emojis, and gifs) that takes the listeners on the reader’s roller coaster ride. This is already a great blogger activity for students if the oral presentation format doesn’t suit your classroom, or time doesn’t permit.
How do you get your students to share the latest, greatest book they’ve discovered?
Share with us below!
Meghan B. says
You hit the nail on the head! So often when we let students be creative and respond to texts in their own, personal ways — they end up surprising us and doing so much more than we could have expected! Another positive aspect of the list-based book talk is that it doesn’t necessarily require students to have access to technology (either at school or at home). One of my biggest frustrations as a teacher was the inequitable access that my students had to technology outside of my class, activities like this level the playing field.
Lyn Fairchild Hawks says
Right! Isn’t this student’s take so well-pitched to his own audience–and exactly what some other students would prefer to listen to? And great point about tech: we can’t assume tech requirements can be met by everyone. We should offer creative workarounds and options for formats and mediums while maintaining the rigor and meaning of the activity.
Jamye Abram says
I love this topic! One of my favorite projects as a teacher was around a personal book student read during the semester. They were tasked with creating a 10 song soundtrack for their books, including album art, lyrics, and a 2-3 sentence explanation for each song describing how it exemplifies a certain event of the book. As a new teacher, I struggled with getting students in front of the room to present in a way that engaged the other students in the classroom. When they were talking about their soundtracks, though, they lit up with excitement! They loved having the opportunity to showcase their unique music tastes, and the relationship they showed between the songs and the story piqued the interest of other students in the class that weren’t necessarily readers, but music lovers that wanted to see the connection for themselves. I think allowing students the opportunity to creatively express their own experience with a story offers a sense of ownership and personal relationship to literature, and gives peers a warm invitation into that written world.
Lyn Fairchild Hawks says
Jamye, this is a wonderful example of high-level analysis blended with personal interest. Students are connecting one art form to another, seeing concept and theme translating from song to story. The art of the perfect playlist has always been a thing, and the famous mixtape will hopefully never die. Preteens and adolescents in particular are connecting with music deeply at this stage of development so your comment, “lit up with excitement” just says it all. A song says so much in a short space, and we’re asking kids to do the same with a thesis statement, so it’s the same type of thinking expressed in different modes. Which just made me think of how writing one song or song title to sum up a whole book could be another activity for a shared reading, and maybe having students try to persuade one another as to why their title and their lyrics should be the top song on the playlist…
Monica Miller says
I love this idea! I personally really enjoy the Largehearted Boy blog, where authors contribute playlists for their books. That could be a really cool way to tie in a playlist assignment.
Sally says
I was so fortunate to have a librarian who modeled fun and engaging book talks or “book commercials” as she called them. Students wanted to emulate her funny and suspenseful commercials. As a class, we also discussed the anatomy of a commercial and what good commercials do to their viewers/listeners. Many introverted students chose to write book recommendations or reviews on index cards that I kept in a small index card file box near our classroom library bookshelves. Students would often look through the box when they were stumped on what to read next.
Lyn Fairchild Hawks says
Yes! Book commercials, book posters, book trailers…all of them are fabulous ways to share our passion and “best of” sections of books. That’s great you talked about the anatomy of a commercial because that visual and media literacy pays off in other realms, as you well know. And having a classroom be full of resources for students to find the next great book makes the whole space full of a delicious kind of suspense. I see how readers on Instagram and other social media outlets proudly photograph their TBR piles and tag with #tbr #bibliophile and I’m thinking a shared and private Instagram where students submit photos to the teacher with artistic photos and new hashtags might be fun.