Well, I thought I'd copy Melissa's idea to let others know how the core novels went for me and my students.  I think I can say that Melissa and I probably had similar experiences.  I read Among the Hidden with my 9th grade classes (3 of them) and Slumming with my 10th grade classes (2 of them). 

I think Among the Hidden is a great way to start.  The reading itself is not challenging but there are very interesting issues for the students to contemplate and discuss.  Actually, my students hated the audio at first.  I told them to get through 5 chapters and then if they didn't like it, we'd stop listening and I could read out loud.  But after five chapters, all classes voted to continue with the audio.  Also, like Melissa's kids, we quickly got to the point when they complained when we were stopping and begged to hear more.  There were several times when I had to point out that we had less than 2 minutes left in class and that's why I wouldn't allow us to continue on to the next chapter.  The suspense/cliffhangers at the ends of the chapters make Among the Hidden an ideal book to begin with. 

After reading about Melissa's interactive word wall, I decided to try more with the vocab.  I had them start playing with concept circles.  For example, I put propaganda, rally, revolution, and crusade together and asked students to explain how those words are connected.  Then I gave the title of "change" and asked them to explain how they're related to change.   Then I had them categorize words and make their own circles.  I also gave them circles and asked them to fill in a related word.  It makes so much sense that they'd do better with the words if they're thinking about how they're related to other things and I found it much more successful that way.  I look forward to the next core novel where I can use Melissa's word wall idea and the concept circle together.

I will say that Melissa and I had one difference.  My students felt that I had them do too much while we were reading.  I think I got a little carried away with the different strategies and graphic organizers.  So, I'll need to tone that down next time I teach this.  But the book was really a success.  In fact, although I had copies of the sequels already in my classroom, I had to go buy more because the kids wanted to keep reading about Luke.

I would say that my 10th graders were less enthusiastic about Slumming.  My 2nd period class was so quiet, I often wasn't sure whether they even liked the book.  But almost every single 10th grader said it was good and that I should read it again with my classes next year.  The reading of Slumming is definitely more challenging because there are 3 different points of view and the readers have to do a lot more inferring.  Those are the things we focused on as we read.  We used the graphic organizers to keep track of what we knew about each character and what we could tell about them from their words and actions.   

This is a great novel to have students talk about how people are judged.  We had some great discussions.  The fact that there were 3 very different main characters really broadened our discussions.  For example, Alicia led us to discuss how blind girls can be sometimes when it comes to guys they're attracted to.  We looked at the inferences she made about him and the evidence she based those inferences on and the kids agreed that she made faulty inferences.  But we also agreed that all of us have done the same or know someone else who has.  I'm glad that I was able to do this novel with my 10th graders because I think we had much more mature conversations than the 9th graders would have had.  But, this might be perfect for the 9th graders after we've had a few novels under our belts, and especially after they've discussed novels in the lit circle format. 

It was interesting to read Lee's post because I had a very similar experience with my students. Some of my students were not \"feeling\" the book (as one outspoken student put it)until the end of chapter eight. When I stopped the CD a chorus of protests erupted in the room. The same thing happened at the end of chapter 15! The majority of my students are now definitely \"feeling\" the book. The only downside is that they want to hurry through the assignments to get back to the story. This is not a problem I am too upset about- wanting to read more! The Y charts are working especially well for all levels of my students. Our word sort has been interesting as well. I posted the words and student selected categories on the wall. Almost every day we interact with the words to either reorganize or move our unknown words into pre-existing or new categories. I will take a picture and try to post when I am done with my roll of film (I know- I need a digital!).
Something else that has been going well is my students are making connection with the text. Because of my students' socio-economic status, there is special attention to how the government treats the commoners vs. the barons. Also, there is a link that could connect well online today about America reaching 300 million people. I believe the link is through the Today show. Here is an attempt to add the link: [Click to view link] rats! I don't think it is working. It is on msn- there is a message board about if we should worry about the pop growth and related articles about the environment and the economy. My students don't have regular access to computers, so I think I am going to incorporate it through homework or extra credit. Hope this helps!

I am Anne Cobb and I work with Recorded Books.

The first novel is going well.  I'm doing this one with the 9th graders.  Friday we finished at the end of chapter 8 and the kids were literally begging me to read another chapter.  Unfortunately, we were at the end of class so that wasn't possible.  But it's always nice when we're that into the book.

We did the admit slip and possible sentences before we started and both of those were great.  We had some interesting predictions and questions before we even started reading. 

Honestly, at the beginning, when we started using the CD, I was worried.  It seemed to be going pretty slowly - some of the students didn't like the reader's voice and some thought the CD was great.  It's the usual dilemma - you can't make everyone happy.  But we're past that stage now and everyone is into the book, even students who have read it before.

I loved that the kids almost immediately made the connection to China and were asking questions about their population law.  We used the two articles in the Nonfiction Reader to do mini-research.  We started by listing their questions.  Then I asked students to choose three questions for their papers.  I read one article aloud and they listened for answers to their questions.  We talked about answers we heard, unanswered questions and new questions.  Then I gave them one of the articles to read on their own.  It went pretty well.  (Thanks, Lynette, for this idea from this summer.  Its a nice intro to research and a good first step.)

So, Monday the students will begin keeping the chapter map and the visualizing. 

 

 

 

 

Hello! I have used Recorded Books in my classroom for the past two years.  It has been the single best thing I have done to improve my students' comprehension.  Many of my students feel like they aren't "good readers" and shut down at the thought of reading anything- they no longer feels so overwhelmed.  What is even more important is that many of my students who considered themselves non-readers now like to read!  Being a part of the Plugged-in to Reading community is going to be an exciting and fufilling adventure for all of us!  How to "manage" the equipment can appear to be overwhelming, so if anyone needs any help please let me know.  Good Luck!