What happened? Why is summer almost over already? How come I haven’t started thinking about what new things to put in place?
Maybe you have some ideas to share with me about what you do with reading and writing in the class everyday. What do you do to create reading routines in class? What about setting up writing routines? How do you put things in place that make strong reading and writing matters of habit, things that students work on and improve each day?
Already Doing
Reading for ten minutes every day for the first six weeks is something I did last year and I’ll do again this year. We’ll have Do Firsts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but that kind of writing is no big deal. Mondays will be response to a visual, Wednesdays response to a quotation, and Fridays response to some kind of writing challenge. Whenever there is a writing assignment lingering, students will have ten minutes each day to write. We’ll continue with the reading journals that have been in place for about the last eleven years. Having a wide selection of books in the room is also important. My latest trips to Powell’s and Book Warehouse reflect that I’m still working on that.
Thinking About
Kelly Gallagher’s Article of the Week sounds promising, especially with a bit of Jim Burke’s Weekly Reader and my 2008 thought about delicious.com thrown in. Making sure that I am doing as much reading and writing as I ask of my students is also a key part of talking to the class about those processes. In talking about what I’m reading and writing, I want to make it obvious that this is a part of my life but not the only part. It needs to be clear that we are not one-dimensional people with only our subject area in mind.
Help me with what I’m missing. What are your great ideas for how to encourage reading and writing everyday in your class?