Why Blog?
If you're looking for more support for blogging in the classroom, I recommend these articles from Read Writing Think and the Nerdy Book Club
Blog Sites
10 Blog post Ideas for students (AND Teachers)
Students will know how to properly review a book before they start blogging. With any post, the expectation will be that they provide concrete evidence to support their ideas- They must explain why they have come to the conclusions that they have and provide examples.
1. Top 10 Lists
- Books into Movies // The 10 best and/or 10 worst movies based on books.
- Genre // Best genres or books from a specific genre
- Best Books // All-time, for the current year, for the year they were born, etc.
- Best Cover Art
- Literary Crushes // Tobias, Peeta, Prince Maxon :)
- Book quotes
- Shockers // Make sure to include a spoiler alert!!!
- What’s on my holds list? Have students discuss what books they are planning to read next and why those books have made their list.
- What should I read next? Utilize online quizzes and websites to get suggestions about what you should read next. Check out Your Next Read and What Should I Read Next? Students could also take a poll or ask for recommendations from their peers
- What's your genre? Which character are you? Which fictional setting do you belong in?
- This is great for the beginning of the school year as you are getting to know each other!
- What kinds of questions were asked? Do you agree or disagree with the results?
- Book Reviews // Students can submit these to websites and become professional reviewers!
- Professional Book Reviews // Do you agree or disagree with their conclusions? How did they support their ideas? Did they persuade you to believe their opinion? If it's a book you haven't read, will you read it now?
- Blind date with a book // Choose a book without knowing anything about it, read it, and review it. Would you have read it if you could have chosen it for yourself?
- Book speed dating // Spend 3 minutes a piece with a selection of 15 books you've never read before. After previewing the content, pick a book you would like to read and add any others to your "To-Read" list. Write about the experience and review the book. Was it what you expected?
- 40 Book Reading Challenge // Championed by Donalyn Miller, author of The Book Whisperer, this challenge requires students to read 40 books in a given school year (roughly one book a week). Books over 350 pages can count as 2 books. Even if a student doesn't reach the 40 book goal, they are sure to read more than they have in the past!
- Summer/Winter/Spring Break Reading Challenge // This can be whatever you want it to be. During my student teaching, we had the classes compete against each other. The results were amazing! The Nerdy Book Club has been doing a book-a-day challenge every summer for the last 5 years. I also found this challenge on Pinterest- Teachers might do this challenge themselves or use this structure to create their own class challenges.
- Character CD track/ potential movie soundtrack
- Character’s chapter Tweet/Status
- Create a movie trailer
- Letters to authors, characters
- Design a book cover
- Write a prequel or sequel
- Book Signings
- News articles
- Blog posts
- Tweets, Statuses, etc.
- Lets take an idea from Hazel Grace's mom and celebrate all the little holidays!
- National Holidays // What's a good book to read at Christmas? St. Patrick's Day? The 4th of July?
- National Library Week
- Authors' birthdays
- Characters' birthdays // Harry Potter's is July 31st :)
- Book releases
- Movies based on books releases
- Ask a question or create a poll in a blog post, then write about the results.
- All time best book
- All-time best book into a movie
- What should I read next?
- Books to read if you're missing the Hunger Games
- Resources and books to pair with novels of a given topic/genre
- These are technically essay prompts that could be perfect with with a blog post platform.
- Author Study // Read multiple books by the same author
- Genre Study // Look at multiple books of the same genre
- Author Biography
- Character Analysis
- Literary Analysis
- Compare and Contrasts // Books and their movies, characters from different books, different genres, etc.
So what do you think? Will you give blogging a try in your classroom???