Samantha Jeacle, teacher librarian at Rosebud Secondary College has kindly shared information on her excellent Year 8 reading blog, called “That reading blog thing…”

That reading blog thing... homepage

We set up our reading blog as part of our Read Every Day program. Students in Year 8 are involved in the program for one of their five English lessons, for one semester per year. The goal in setting up the blog was to allow the students to share information about books they have enjoyed with their peers in a way that is enjoyable and easily accessible. Previous to the blog we were asking the students to deliver a short speech to the class on a book, but this was really tedious and the students hated it. So, after completing the WEB 2.0 online PD, I decided to set up a reading blog. The students are now expected to post a comment to the blog at least once for the semester. One thing we are focusing on in the reading program is genre (the students are expected to read across three different genres) this is why the pages on the blog are arranged as such. Students are expected to identify the genre of their book and pick the right page to post on. Then, while they’re there, they are exposed to other books in the same genre that they might like.

The response to the blog has been really positive. The students were sceptical at first, but once they made their comment and saw their name ‘on the Internet’ they really quite liked it. Some students have even made multiple visits.

History/war page

 We would even encourage other teacher librarians to comment on the blog about YA fiction they would recommend for Year 8 readers too.

 Thanks Samantha for taking the time and effort to share your hard work with Bright Ideas. It’s heartening to learn that the students’ responses have been positive.