Deeper Reading Blogs

I know I am super late in posting and I understand if I do not get credit for them, but would like to show my experiments in reading Deeper Reading and applying them to the classroom. Please forgive me if I am a bit random in my blogs about chapters, but I got a lot of good use from different parts of the book at certain times.

Reading Focus

I have a lot of problem with this across the board, but 9th grade seems to be harder of the classes to keep focused on the reading at hand especially with a new book they are not yet into; however, I also do experience this with my 11th graders if it is something they are forced to read and yet have no interest in it. Usually I get heads down, doodling, talking quietly, passing notes, with a variety of other things. So, I tried a few things.

20 Questions - I loved this activity and I think if you used this once in awhile this will go far. I just adapted it a little to short stories

With my ninth grade students, I made the read a long short story that is actually really good, but it can get difficult to get into. (The Most Dangerous Game) So, I did a few things with them to get them focused on the story as well as map out the plot line.

This is where the 20 Questions played in. They had to create 20 questions that would float over the whole story, but they have to be indepth questions. Now, I had to show them what type of questions we were going to strive for and not obvious questions nor what color was the shoe on his left foot either.

It went rather well. I made the students really pay attention to the story in order to make indepth questions as well make them ask other questions (towards me) about the story itself. I then paired them up or placed in them in groups and see if they could stump each other. If there was a challenge of the answer, they had to look it up and confirm or deny the answer. This kept the students focused, they learned the story line, and they it made it fun.