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#633. Novel challenge

I launched a challenge this year. My grade
5 class is reading for entertainment. We will try to read
100 novels before the 100 hundredth day of school. It is a goal
which is easily attainable if the whole class acts as a team.
Ive written several general reading reports that the kids
fill out after they've finished a novel. I then interview
them to verify that they actually read the novel. Then we write
the title, the author, the reader's name, the date that they
finished the novel, and their appreciation of that book on
our master sheet. This master serves as a way of counting
the novels and as a reference for other readers who may wish
to read the same novel. The idea is not to read 100 different
books but for us, as a team, to read 100 books. My students are
mostly unilingual French speaking but I have a couple of bilingual
English and French speaking girls. We may read novels in the
language of our choice. Again my objective is to infect my students
with a love for reading. On the first day of school I started
reading a funny and touching novel about an older, eccentric, substitute
teacher written by a Quebecois writer, Dominique Demers. The
title is "La nouvelle maitresse". I read for 5 to 10 minutes
almost everyday at the end of a class or before recess .
They love this quiet time. I started doing this as a form of
advertising for some authors and so that my weaker readers will
still get the benefits of opening up to good novels.
I figured out that the 100th day will fall during the week of
February 10th. I'll have a cake made in the shape of an open book
by the local bakery and the class will throw itself a party.
I hope that this can be helpful to someone.
julia