I hope your Monday if off to a great start! Long Island is anticipating a blizzard tomorrow, so it looks like I will not have school tomorrow. This means I will be adding a day onto one of my breaks at some point (😡).
Last week my 7th grade students really dove into their reading notebooks. As I mentioned in my last post, my students are reading three different books, and I was not all that sure how this was going to work out in the classroom. I was anticipating a little bit of chaos, but so far, it has been working out fairly well! ALL my students are completely engaged in their books!
Here is how last week went:
Monday: My students assembled their notebooks, adding their tabs and cover. If you would like a copy of the tabs, here is the link:
Tuesday: We went over the reading log expectations, and my students took notes on their first mini-lesson, "Reading Notebook Structure". I wanted my students to understand what was expected of them and how I would run the periods.
Wednesday: I began the period by going over the students' second mini-lesson, "Analyzing a Title". Take a look at the image below of one of my student's notebooks and notes.
Following, ALL of my students read the first 13 pages of their novel, which worked out for me because it covered one or two chapters in their novels. While reading, they completed a reading log.
If you would like a template for this reading log, grab it here:
Thursday/Friday: I then went over the Reader Response section with my students, and my students glued in the reader response pages. Check them out below:
The great part about reader response questions is that you can ask the students to answer any number that you want them to answer, and it gives the students choice! For the first reader response questions, I had my students answer the essential question about the title from the mini-lesson. I also had them answer a question about setting, making a prediction and drawing a conclusion, being that they only read the exposition of the novel.
I hope this has been helping you gather ideas for reading notebooks at the middle school level. If you missed my Part I of this series, check it out here: PART I
Enjoy your week!
