Summer Reading & Best New Books

Best Reading Picks for 2017 OR Books to Stock in Your Classroom Library...

What are you reading (or want to read) this summer? Are you looking for some suggested books for your classroom library? I added (or plan to add) these books this year and am hoping to find time to read and re-read them this summer and fall.

Please contribute to my list with your own suggestions in the comment section below! (Note: These books include associate links to Amazon.com at the bottom of the page, but you can probably find the books at your local library or bookstore of your choice.)

CURRENT EVENTS AND SOCIAL INJUSTICE

1. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

I read this book when it was first released earlier this year. It took me just a day and a half, but I had to stop several times for emotional breaks. It's a powerful book and gives the reader a first-person look at a shooting of a young black man by a white police officer from the teenage perspective. Every teen (heck, every human) can benefit from reading this book. It may just change the way many think about movements like #BlackLivesMatter. This is one that I would love to incorporate into my high school curriculum. At the very least, it is a MUST for your classroom library. 

2. All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
Two alternating perspectives about the fallout from one explosive event of police violence. There's some language, but overall it should be appropriate for middle and high school students. It's another contemporary book dealing with race, police brutality, stereotypes, and white privilege. Though the hardcover was released in 2015, the paperback will come out this fall.

FANTASY

3. Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

I really fell in love with Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy (if you haven't read that, DO SO NOW! It's so good.), so I look forward to reading this novel. It IS a two-book series, so if you hate waiting for the second book to be published, you may want to wait to read this one. It's a fantasy novel about dreams and a mythical lost city called Weep. It's hard to imagine she'll be able to top her previous work, but if she comes close, this book will become a new favorite of mine.

ROMANCE & HEARTBREAK

4. What Light by Jay Asher
New fans this winter were introduced to Jay Asher via the Netflix series of his novel Thirteen Reasons Why. Asher's newest novel (released last fall) is a much more light-hearted love story, though it does deal with themes of forgiveness and shame. Teens will resonate with the main characters and adults will be reminded of their first love.

5. & 6. Everything, Everything and The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
With the release of Nicola Yoon's first novel as a movie this summer, it's a great time to read (or re-read) Everything, Everything. It came out in 2015 and has received praise by authors and readers alike. Her latest novel, The Sun is Also a Star (released in November 2016), has received similar accolades. Though both books are about love and overcoming obstacles, they are both unique. Many praise the fact that Yoon includes diversity in her characters, which is often lacking in young adult literature.

ADDICTIVE SERIES

7. Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, Book 2) By Cassandra Clare
Fans of Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices series will be happy to know the second book in her new Dark Artifices series is out. This Shadowhunters book continues where Lady Midnight left off.

8. Generation One (Lorien Legacies Reborn) By Pittacus Lore
The author of the I Am Number Four series is back with a new series that takes place a year after United as One. Because of the "Loric energy" that the Garde spread to protect humans during the war, human teenagers began to develop powers of their own. This series follows the Garde's efforts to train the teenagers to control their powers.

HISTORY (WWII)

9. The Nightingale: A Novel by Kristin Hannah
Not only is this a great historical novel, its hero is a female based on a real-life World War II hero, Andree de Jongh. She creates an escape route out of Nazi Germany and her efforts are overlooked by the enemy because they don't believe a woman would be capable of such a feat. The novel celebrates this unsung bravery. While the hardback has been out for a few years, the paperback was released this year, making it more affordable for your classroom library.

10. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Here's another best-seller that was released in paperback this year. Set in World War II France and Germany, it brings together a blind French girl and an orphaned German boy on opposite sides of the war front. It's beautifully written and rich with figurative language.

CONTEMPORARY RE-TELLINGS & MUSIC

11. Bull by David Elliott

Author David Elliott takes the story of Theseus and the Minotaur and updates it with a modern twist: the story is written entirely in verse, with rhymes that will catch the attention of your high school students. Many critics compare it to Lin-Manuel Miranda's retelling of Hamilton with equal commendations.

12. Solo by Kwame Alexander {Available August 1st} 
This new book by authors Kwame Alexander and Mary Rand Hess is written in poetic verse. It's about a 17-year-old boy who finds out he's not who he thought he was and seeks to find his birth mother. Classic rock by Metallica, Lenny Kravitz, and more is interwoven with original verse to tell the hero's journey in a unique and refreshing way.

HIGH-INTEREST NON-FICTION

13. Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team by Steve Sheinkin
This is a great read for those reluctant readers; though it's introduced on the premise of being a sports underdog story, your students will become engrossed in all the obstacles faced by Thorpe and his teammates. It allows for discussions on racism, persecution, determination, and hard work. It is definitely suitable for middle-school students.

14. Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman
Vincent van Gogh wrote over 600 letters to his brother Theo; the author uses these letters and more to paint a picture of the love the brothers had for one another. This biography is well researched and riveting.

15. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie

Warning: This book contains profanity and adult situations that are not suited for younger readers. Students who will gravitate toward this will be those who may have read Alexie's novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian or those who have had difficult relationships with a parent. But it is a powerful and heart-wrenching read for anyone. I recommend this for upperclassmen (junior/senior level) and mature underclassmen. His writing style alone is worthy of exploration by students.

COMING THIS FALL 

Don't miss these books by your favorite authors this fall. They are sure to be in high demand by your students.

16. Warcross by Marie Lu {Availablein September 12th}
From the author of the Legend and Young Elites trilogies, Marie Lu writes about an addictive video game and the hackers hired to flesh out those who are betting illegally on the game. Your students who love technology and gaming will be enthralled.

17. They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera {Available September 5th}
Two boys are given the news that it is their last day to live; they decide to make the most of their last day by packing in a lifetime of memories.

18. Turtles All the Way Down by John Green {Available October 10th}
It's a new John Green novel; what more needs to be said? If you are, however, curious about the title and plot of the story, learn more via Entertainment Weekly's post here: Everything We Know About John Green's New Book


You can find the books on Amazon here:

    

    

  

  

  

    

    

What are YOU reading this summer?

Which books do you recommend adding to your classroom library this fall?

Please comment below to contribute to the conversation!

Cyber Monday and Tuesday Sale at TeachersPayTeachers

TpT SUPER CYBER SAVINGS 2014! 

Up to 28% off the entire site Monday, December 1st and Tuesday, December 2nd 

Use this promotional code at check out: TPTCYBER 

My fellow teachers who will be participating:

Danielle Knight

James Whitaker

Created by Mr.Hughes

Juggling ELA

Ruth S.

Miss Math Dork

The Creative Classroom

Kate's Classroom Cafe

Live Love Math

Darlene Anne

Michele Luck's Social Studies

Charlene Tess

Teaching Math By Hart

2 Peas and a Dog

Pamela Kranz

Kristin Lee

The Career Ready Teacher

All Things Algebra

4mulaFun

The SuperHERO Teacher

Liz's Lessons

For the Love of Teaching Math

Secondary Solutions

Teaching High School Math

A Space to Create

The Classroom Sparrow

Science Stuff

Addie Williams

The Tutor House

Connie Casserly

Tracee Orman

Teaching FSL

FisherReyna Education

Lessons With Coffee

Karol Steele

Margaret Whisnant
Mad Science Lessons
The Math Post
It's My Business
Room 213
Getting Nerdy with Mel and Gerdy

Linda Jennifer

Super secondary TpT teachers want to wish you a wonderful holiday season!

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If you don't want to wait for the sale to start on Monday, 
I am currently having a huge BUNDLE BlackFriday14 sale on my clip art graphics and interactive reading notebook activities. This sale will only extend through today, so get them while you can!

New interactive reading notebook activity bundle:

Stay tuned for MORE great products I'll be uploading this weekend!

Publishing Student Work

How many times have you been grading your students' papers and thought, I wonder if they would write better if they knew others could read this? 

The answer, for most students, is "Yes." Most do put forth more effort and take a little more pride in their final product when they know ahead of time their work will be published and public on the web.

Years ago, I began a short story writing unit by telling students they would be writing for their peers. I asked them to create stories their friends would like (still school appropriate, of course). I assigned the students to read all of the stories and comment on them. Then I asked them to share their favorites. If the writers wanted to reveal themselves, they could. But they could also choose to stay anonymous.

The first couple of years of this method were a little rough. Even though I specified that all feedback should be constructive and respectful, there were times when students blurted out comments like "This is the stupidest story ever!" or "Doesn't this person know how to use spell check?" I found myself in damage-control mode often.

Students also wrote about other students, making snide remarks or writing stories that were not actually fiction. Some students were embarrassed. Feelings were hurt. I felt like the worst teacher ever.

Then something magical happened. Students asked for their stories back to make changes, improvements. They wanted to edit and peer edit. They begged me to let them make revisions after they had already handed in a final draft.

What? This can't be. Students wanting to make revisions?

Yes. There's something called pride that creeps in during this unit and turns ordinary slackers into Hemingways. No one wants to look like a lazy fool in front of their classmates.

USING SHORT STORIES
For this unit I use students' short stories because 1. They aren't personal narratives, so students can remain anonymous, and 2. They are much more interesting to read than a research or informative essay. Can you imagine your students' reaction if they had to read 60 or more research papers their classmates wrote? Snoozeville.

ORGANIZING THE STORIES

In the beginning, I just published the stories in my room. I basically made photocopies of each story, making sure the writer's name was either covered up or whited-out. Each story was assigned a number. Students were given a sheet of paper with the titles of the stories and a blank area to write their feedback.  I would then cut the paper in strips and give the writers the feedback (usually throwing away the comments that were hurtful or irrelevant). 

I used a small file organizer with hanging files (see below). I labeled the folders in groups of 5 or 10 stories each so they would be easy for the students to find. 

It would take my students about 4-5 class periods (about 45 min. periods) to read through most of the stories, depending on length. We read some of the longer ones aloud. Years that I had more students, we took about six class periods to finish reading the stories.

Students wrote their feedback on a separate page. Some years I even had students grade the stories. That was always interesting. They usually gave their classmates much lower grades than I did. I do think it also made them appreciate how hard it is to grade a creative assignment as objectively as possible.

Did some students slack off and only read some of the stories? Yes. Did some just copy the feedback from their classmates paper? Yes. But the majority of students really liked this unit and, boy, did they read a lot of pages! I've always had the attitude that reading something–no matter what the material–is better than not reading at all. If reading their classmates' stories will get a reluctant reader to read, I am all for it. 

ORGANIZING THE STORIES ONLINE
Over the past few years, I've been publishing the stories online. Students can then comment online right after the story. The writers are still anonymous and the students create user names in order to comment (though most students know their classmates' user names because they can't help but tell each other).

One rule I do stick to for the feedback online: keep it positive and constructive.

Will some students still be embarrassed? Yes. And here's why I think that is OK: the times I have been embarrassed by my mistakes in grammar, spelling, etc., I LEARNED from it. I became more careful with my writing. Each time I messed up publicly, I improved my writing exponentially. This growth does not come when we mess up privately because no one calls us on it, or we never notice our mistakes.

I could give pages of feedback to each student on their stories. Some may read it. Some may toss it in the trash without looking at it. Very few (if any) will try to improve that story. And why should they? It's already been graded. But one comment from a classmate saying, "It drives me nuts when people use the wrong 'your'!" is all it may take to get that writer to make changes.


PUBLISHING USING BLOGGER
I use Blogger to publish student work because we all have Google accounts at school, so it makes it easy for the students to comment on the stories. I also appreciate the fact that Google Drive now has an "embed" feature, so I can share the stories as PDFs right on the blog post. Before, the formatting of the story (italics, special fonts) was usually lost when I copied and pasted them in.

{It should be noted that all my students have MacBook Pros. If you have limited access to the internet, I would choose to do the paper-publishing option instead.}

After students have read the stories, I have them vote for their favorites in categories such as "Best Plot," "Best Characters," "Most Creative," "Saddest," "Funniest," etc. If students wish to reveal which story is theirs after voting has finished, I allow them to do so, but they don't have to.

You can see past blogs here (note - some of the comments have been disabled to prevent just anyone from posting):
http://erie2015.blogspot.com/
http://ehsclass2016.blogspot.com/
and currently (not all of the stories are published): http://ehsclass2017.blogspot.com/

Do you publish your students' stories? Please share your experiences in the comments below!

I will be updating my SHORT STORY WRITING UNIT within the next week to include all the handouts and information about publishing student work. 

Soon to be updated!

Interactive Notebook Examples and Templates

When I first heard someone mention interactive notebooks, I thought they meant "interactive" as in digital interaction between peers.

But I was completely wrong. "Interactive," as in "interactive notebook," refers to a student's collection of notes and graphics. They are personal tools for students to process ideas and concepts. The "interaction" part is the student interacting with the notes (rather than with other students). The more students interact with the information (have multiple senses connected with it), the more they can retain knowledge.

This makes sense to me because even though I love technology and would never want my students to be without access to their laptops, I still firmly believe writing with a pencil and reading a physical paper book helps my students remember and connect more deeply with the text.

With that in mind, I've been busy finding ways to incorporate more hands-on projects with my secondary students. (I've noticed that much of what is on the market for interactive notebooks is elementary-targeted.) I created a variety of resources and have bundled them all together here:

My bundle includes all of the following original products from my store.

I created these tabbed mini-books to use with both fiction and nonfiction text:

The books (Theme, Plot, Story Elements, Vocabulary, and Figurative Language Analysis) practice the following literature standards for grades 6-12: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.4, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.5, and CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.6.  They also cover these reading informational standards and language standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.4, and CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.5; CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.4, and CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.5.

These are handy for using with individual stories and novels. Students can easily refer back to them later and compare two texts with one another. They are perfect for using as a source when writing a literary analysis paper or compare/contrast paper.

The wording/language used is targeted toward secondary students.

Plus, they are easy to put together: no glue is needed. Students can just assemble the pages and staple them. They can be affixed inside an existing notebook or not. 

Teachers can add as many or as few pages to the books. (This can be helpful for the plot analysis events and the vocabulary analysis book, both shown above.)

If you want to purchase a BLANK TEMPLATE for the mini-books, you can find them here in my store (commercial use is allowed): EDITABLE MINI BOOK TEMPLATES for CUSTOMIZING PAGES

I also created a bundle of literature resources to cover all of the 6-12 Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for reading. Even if your state does not use the CCSS, you can still utilize these resources. The skills practiced still involve essential reading and critical-thinking skills. I separated the foldables by standards, but they are not labeled on the templates themselves.

It includes over 90 different activities, which are scaffolded for introducing skills and differentiated for progressing into more advanced skills.

One of the more difficult activities for my students over the past few years has been analyzing an event to see how it provokes a decision, propels the action, and reveals aspects of a character. I'm not sure why they struggle so much with this skill (reading standard 3), but breaking down single events and dialogue will help. The foldable above has students write each response on a clock face, then stack on top of each other and staple for a complete analysis of an event (below).

Another higher-level skill practiced is comparing/contrasting two different works and analyze how the two authors approach the material both differently and similarly. (Reading standard 9)

Secondary students may also appreciate graphics they can relate to.

A secondary interactive bundle would not be complete without the Bard, right!?

If you download the preview to my package, you'll get two free templates from the bundle. 

If you wish to purchase the BLANK TEMPLATES for these (and many more) interactive notebook activities, you can find them here (commercial use is allowed): INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOK BLANK TEMPLATES

I'd love your feedback!

Comment below with your experience using interactive notebooks in your classroom. 

• What kind of notebooks do you use (spiral vs. composition)? 

• How often do you use them with your students? 

• Do you have any tips for teachers starting out?

Thanks for stopping by and sharing!

Test Time #TeacherProblems

Hey kids...it's called READING. Pick up a book and try it sometime. :)

Do these images look (or sound) familiar?


There's nothing worse than a student who never pays attention in class, doesn't read the book, doesn't take notes or study for the test, then complains that the test is too hard or they didn't have time to study or it's the teacher's fault they fail.

This goes out to all those teachers who've had to deal with unmotivated and irresponsible students. I feel your pain!

Are you ready for the release of Allegiant (Book 3 of the Divergent series)?

Just in case you've forgotten: Allegiant, the third and final book of Veronica Roth's Divergent series, comes out Tuesday, Oct. 22.

I have been waiting to read Insurgent until the date got closer, and now I don't know if I'll have time to read it before Tuesday. But I have a class of seniors who have just devoured Divergent, then most have read or are currently reading Insurgent, so I am sure they will not mind have a day of in-class reading this week!

After you finish reading, comment with your thoughts (NO SPOILERS, please!!) on the series final. It's always sad when a series ends, but I'm always anxious to see how the author ends it.

By the way, Roth has been busy putting out short stories from Four's perspective. Check those out here:
"The Transfer" was released in September. The rest will follow later this year and in early 2014.
"Free Four" was released August 2012.

Pre-Reading Activity for "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury

My students are currently reading various short stories. One of them is Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains."

Before we read it, I have my students brainstorm the benefits of technology. Next, I prompt them to come up with an invention (that has not been invented yet) that would make their lives easier. I let them work in groups, then share their inventions on a post-it note. (One of my artistic students drew the lightbulb since my drawing skills are lacking.) They usually come up with some creative responses. Here's one of my favorites:

After reading the story we discuss many of downfalls of technology. Since I teach at a 1:1 school, we see/experience a lot of these pitfalls on a daily basis; although, most students would agree: no matter how frustrating technology can be, they wouldn't want to live without it.

ADDITIONAL LINKS
• If you read this story with your students, you must listen to Leonard Nimoy's rendition on You Tube. It is fantastic.

• For additional ideas, I wrote a post about Sara Teasdale's poem, "There Will Come Soft Rains" on my other blog in connection to Earth Day.