This
morning in my bleary-eyed state after waking, I stumbled across Brian Wyzlic’s
blog post (HERE). I loved reading about the conversation he had with a student, and I
really loved hearing about Colby Sharp’s secret six-star book list. My wheels
immediately began turning. What books would make my top ten list? How would I
even quantify such a list? I decided to turn this topic over to my students.
Each day of
Language Arts we begin with a quick write. Sometimes I read them a poem, a
short text, a picture book, some days we watch a video, and some days we look
at an image. Regardless of the way we begin, we always then take the time to
write off of that “piece” for two minutes. Today, I shared Brian’s blog.
Each class
began shifting in their spots as I read them the post. They knew a quick write
was coming. In the first class, a boy in the front of the room piped up as soon
as I was done, “Good Lord, you’re going to have us try and come up with our ten
favorite books, aren’t you? That’s an impossible task!” The buzz between the
students was immediate as I assured them that yes, that was exactly what I
wanted them to do.
In each
class the students wrote for two minutes (our typical quick write time) and
then turned to share with their neighbors the books they had added to their
lists so far. The three classes are usually quite varied in their responses to
any given lesson, but today’s lesson had the same impact on all three groups.
In each class the students returned
to their notebooks to continue refining their lists after the mini-lesson.
In each class books and authors were debated as to whether they should be included on a list such as this.
In each class books in a series were
brought up. Some thought that you should just be able to include the whole
series for one spot. Others thought that was cheating and you should only
include your favorite in the series.
In each class I witnessed favorites
from when the children were small making the lists.
Most lists included a variety of
novels, picture books, and graphic novels.
In each class children ended up
adding books to their “to read” list because the books were on a friend’s top
ten list.
My favorite
conversation happened across the classes. We noticed that many of the books
were not placed on the list because they were necessarily the “best book
written.” Many of them made our list because of the memories that we associated
with that book.
For
example, one of the books on my list was Sylvester
and the Magic Pebble by William Steig. Now this is a fabulous book on its
own, however it is on my list because of the memory I have of my mom reading it
to us when we were small. Also, because of the way that my mom answers my boys
when they ask what is for dinner, “pickled oats, sassafras salad, and timothy
compote,” which is a line from the book.
One of my
students picked the first book that made her love reading. Another selected a
book that made him feel that he was a reader for the first time, way back in
first grade. Many are planning to blog about their lists when they are done.
Watching my
students pull book tubs off of the shelves, flip through reading lists from
this year, and turn and talk about books read years ago was an amazing way to
spend my day. I felt completely surrounded by book love. It was a wonderful
feeling.
Creating a
top ten six-star list is an impossible task – I have at least twenty-four on my
list right now. But discussing books, celebrating memories, and finding
connections through story? That is what I want my classroom to be about. Every.
Single. Day.
