Getting the average teen to read is difficult. They have grown up in the i generation. Everything is instantaneous and visual. Why take the time to read a book? If it’s any good they’re just going to make a movie out of it (hence Harry Potter and Percy Jackson). But there are some really wonderful writers out there who can appeal to the teen audience. Look at “Twilight.” I’ve never seen so many of my students with a book in their hands…and a big one at that.

The American Library Association has some great ideas for teen literature. My state of Florida even puts out a Teens Read list every year with the latest, most interesting stuff for high school age kids. Every summer, I download the list and then head to my local library to read them and see which of the books my particular set of kids will probably like. Remember, I teach mostly 9th and 10th grade Intensive Reading students. You kind of need to know your audience.

I will talk about a couple of the books I have read with my students in several different blogs. I will also include a set of comprehension questions to go along with the book.

Uglies – by Scott Westerfeld

This book is the first in a series of four (although the first three are really the best). It takes place about 300 years in the future and follows the story of Tally Youngblood, a 15-year-old “ugly” who is about to have an operation to make her “pretty” which all young people go through. You quickly find out though that not all young people want to have the operation and are willing to run away to join a small band of rebels who are resisting the government sanctioned (and proposed) procedure.

The good thing about this book is that it is not so sci-fi that the kids will be turned off by it. There are also several themes that can be addressed throughout the book, such as, self-image, free will, the environment and dystopian societies.

Most of my students liked this book (if they were going to like a book) and several students went to the library to check out the second book, “Pretties,” and the third book, “Specials.”  (Comprehension Questions) (Answer key)

13 Little Blue Envelopes – by Maureen Johnson

This book can seem very girly, but so much happens to the main character Ginny, that the boys in my class were okay with it. Ginny’s aunt has died, but the summer after her graduation, she receives a package from her aunt with money and  13 little blue envelopes. Ginny is to fly to Europe and open each envelope only after she has completed the task in the previous one. Ginny winds up backpacking all around Europe in her aunt’s footsteps.

One thing I did with this book was to go online and find pictures of each of the famous places Ginny visits. I printed them out onto transparencies so that when we read about a particular place in the book, I could put up a picture of it on the board for the kids to see. It was a way to help them imagine what Ginny was going through. A lot of kids can identify with Ginny, especially if they have traveled to another country, or come from another country. They will know exactly how Ginny feels when confronted with an unknown language or custom. (Comprehension Questions) (Answer key)

Well, I hope you enjoy these books and if I don’t get too busy around here, I will post more.

Anywho, moving right along. I always encourage my reading kids to do some reading on their own for pleasure with books of their own choosing. All I ask is that it be at a decent educational level (you don’t want your 10th grader to be reading “Dr. Seuss”). I offer extra credit to my students to read at home and then do a book review. Now there are several ways to do a book review. A very conventional way would be to have the kids write out an analysis of the book, include plot, setting, theme, etc. But for a class of reading haters, I don’t want to make the idea of writing a book review to be worse than the actual reading of the book itself. I also do not like reinventing the wheel, so I will admit that I have trolled the Internet looking for cute, creative ways for kids to do book reviews. I have four that I use quite regularly.

The first is a basic book review. Basic Book Review This book review contains areas for kids to write about plot, setting, character, etc. It’s fairly simple and easy.

Next, we have a book review that works like bingo. Book Report Bingo This book review is a little  more creative and is done by completing 5 squares in a row – down, across or diagonal. Questions in the squares will cover things like plot and setting, but may also ask the student the genre of the book, a possible title for a sequel to the book, or why the book would or would not make a good movie.

Third, we have a book review that is shaped like a star. Star Book Review This book review is pretty simple, as well. Besides asking about character and setting, it asks for the student’s opinion on the book and how it made them feel.

Lastly, we have a book review that uses all four corners of the paper. Four Corner Writing This book review is also very simple, but asks the students to explain their choices and provide an alternate ending to the book.

Once students have completed their book review, I ask them to fill out a recommendation form. Book Recommendation These can be printed out on colored paper and put up on a bulletin board or a wall so that other students can see what everyone is reading. It may just encourage some kids to pick up books with good recommendations.

Look, the ultimate goal is to get kids to read and the best way to do that is to let them read something they like and to offer them credit for doing it. In the long run, any reading is good reading.

Once a month, I take my kids to the school library and we do what I call a Book Round Robin. My librarian is an amazing person and incredibly supportive. She gathers anywhere from 60-70 books and divides them into 5 or 6 groups with equal amounts of different kinds of books in each pile. My students divide up into groups and a pile of books is put on each of their tables.

Now before we do this the first time, I go over a few simple rules with the kids.

The Five Finger Rule. Read a page in the middle of the book. Put up one finger for every “clunk” you have.

0 fingers – too easy

1-3 fingers – just right

4-5 fingers – quite hard – go slow

5+ fingers – too hard for now

This is a good way to help kids understand how to pick a book that is readable for them. Once they understand this, we go over skimming a book (reading the back or front flap, reading the first page, picking a random page in the middle, etc.). We also go over the meaning of genre and the librarian goes over where everything is in our library.

Now…each student chooses a book at random from the pile in front of them. Most kids will pick a book because of its picture, or a title that jumps out at them. Have the kids write down the title of the book and author. Then give them 3 minutes (and you need to time this) to skim the book. After the 3 minutes have the students write down an overview of the book. General plot, just an idea of what the book is about. Then they must note the genre of the book, the library call number, and give a recommendation. Don’t just let the kids say “yes” or “no” in the recommendation. If they think they might read it, they should say why. If not, also why.

The purpose of this assignment is two-fold.

First, when students are told to “go find a book to read,” many of them walk into a bookstore or library, see all the thousands of books and quite literally freak out. They have no idea where to even start looking. They don’t know what they are interested in, or if there any “good books” out there. This assignment exposes the kids to different genres and authors. My librarian includes in each pile of books some non-fiction, self help, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, teen fiction, etc. And even those change every time. Horror books one month by be “Cirque du Freak” books and another month be centered around Stephen King. Non-fiction books might be about astronomy one month and dreams the next month. Work with your librarian. And listen to your kids. Ask them when you are finished if they wanted to see more books in a particular genre or by a particular author. And make sure that your librarian or media specialist is around to answer some questions like “I like Stephen King. Are there any books by authors like him?”

The second purpose of this assignment is to get kids to check out books. Just telling them to go to the library isn’t going to work. You have to take them there. I offer extra credit for reading novels and then doing a book review (we’ll talk about those at a later date). I also read a lot of books that my kids are interested in. I’m no saint and frankly, when I am on vacation historical romances are my cheese of choice, but I find the teen reading lists from the American Library Association and my state’s site (Florida Teens Read) and I read a bunch of them. I don’t read every book because some of them are just not interesting to me, but I read their summaries so that when a kid has a question about them, I can give them an intelligent answer.

This assignment can be adapted in several ways. You could rotate your groups of kids to other tables so that they have different books to choose from during the round robin. You could also do short book talks between skimmings and have some of the kids share the book they picked up if they found it interesting. A kid from one group might find the book from a different group interesting enough to check it out.

Don’t be afraid to read these books and talk about them with the kids. You’d be surprised. Most kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for and even though you find the occasional cheesy boy/girl  book, many of the books on the teen lists deal with deeply troubling issues and global concerns (try “13 Reasons Why” and “Hunger Games” which I will be discussing at a later date). If you find another way to adapt my system, I’d love to hear from you. Anything to shake things up.

One thing I noticed as an English teacher is that there is no shortage of lesson plans and activities for teaching the classics. You want help teaching Shakespeare, Poe, Byron…? Thanks to the Internet, someone, somewhere has done something and posted it to share with the world.

But I don’t teach English right now. I teach Reading. I know it sounds the same, but it really isn’t.

You see, in my state, if a student in high school has not received a passing score on the reading section of the state comprehensive assessment test (FCAT) they must take Intensive Reading. The problem with this is that you are forcing a reading class on a student that quite obviously doesn’t like to read. They do not want to be there and they are losing an elective to be there. Now I know that in their Language Arts classes, they are reading classics (as they should). Everyone should be exposed to the likes of Shakespeare and Poe. But in my class, I want to cover newspaper articles and novels that are more current. The novels we read (and we do read one novel every nine weeks) are on the latest teen read lists.

What I have found is that lesson plans for the classics (and even really popular books like “Twilight”) can be found on the Internet fairly easily. But activities for the new novels are not so easy to come by, which means that I have to create my own. Well, why not share that with other teachers? So I will use this site to post my thoughts, creative ideas, and activities for my Reading classes.

Thought that was all? Not even close.

I also advise my school’s newspaper, The Viper Vibe. And a better bunch of kids I’ve never met. They are truly the reason I love coming to work. These students typically join my class in 9th or 10th grade (there are some exceptions with juniors and seniors transferring in) and stay until they graduate, so I form bonds with these kids over several years. I will be using this blog to talk about journalism education and include documents that help us keep ourselves organized, write better articles, and bring in the advertising money.

All documents posted to this site are open to the public. You may download anything and use it or change it to fit your particular needs. The more we as teachers work together, the better education will become. I also encourage people to email me to ask me questions, or let me know about other trends in teen literature or journalism so that I can get better at my own job.

And now…on with the show.