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#633. Novel challenge
Literature, level: all
Posted Sat Sep 19 06:38:01 PDT 1998 by Julia Nadon (julia@sympatico.ca).
École St-Michel, Montebello, Quebec
Materials Required: Classroom novels or a nearby library
Activity Time: 100 days
Concepts Taught: Appreciating literature
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
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