Using Moodle for an online book talk

My students use an online class in Moodle to respond to their independent reading. They have two options: writing a note to me as a private assignment or posting ideas about a book in our "Book Talk" Forum. We collaboratively determine criteria for their posts. Each student has time to be online once in a five day rotation. After they meet the criteria for their weekly post, they are free to read and respond to their classmates' posts. Many students enjoy their online conversations about books.

I like being able to offer options to my students within the online class. I also appreciate the ability to read their thoughts, offer feedback and assess their work at any time without having to take notebooks with me!

Here are two Book Talk conversations:

The Face on the Milk Carton
by Jada - Wednesday, 10 March 2010, 01:20 PM
This is my book from home and my older sister Bethany read these and there are three but they are really good. They are action-ish and mostly realistic mystery. I read The Face on the Milk Carton over the weekend and now I am reading The sequel: The Voice on the Radio. I really liked them evan though I don't really like mystery books. They are exciting to read when you don't have anything els. These books are by Caroline B. Cooney. The main characters name is Janie Johnson and she figures out that she was kidnapped. She also figures out that her real name is Jennie Spring.


Re: The Face on the Milk Carton
by Laura
I think that this book sounds interesting because I like mystery books because their so real you never know who the culprit is or t he murderer is or suspect or what ever.

Re: The Face on the Milk Carton
by Jada
Yah Laura this is my favorite mystery book. I never really try mystery books that often. I usually like action.

Re: The Face on the Milk Carton
by Minyia
For real me too. I like magic. Can I read it too? Can you tell me a little about it?
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Charlie Bone
by Brandon
I can't get into the Charlie Bone book one. It's to slow for me. I don't want to find out what is going to happen to him it would be o.k if he just died. He is dead in my head.

Re: Charlie Bone
by Meg
I like how you expressed it, "dead in my head." That's how I feel with the popular Twilight book's character Bella!

Re: Charlie Bone
by Summer
I started reading the Charlie Bone book 1 but it was to slow for me and I agree with you that a lot of books make it seem like the person is going to die then he ends up living when we all know that he would have been dead; that is what happens in Harry Potter but not so much. I think people have to have a lot of Patience to read things like Charlie Bone and Gregor The Overlander but the series gets better as it goes on, usually.

Re: Charlie Bone
by Sakina
I actually thought that the series was a very good one but then again not everybody like the same genre of books.

Re: Charlie Bone
by Minyia
what is the charlie bone about??

Re: Charlie Bone
by Brandon
Its about a boy and he has powers. He has to go to a school where kids are just like him.


tags:  Moodle booktalk

Creating a Poetry Anthology

Poet Study is a required Reader's Workshop unit for sixth graders in my district. We select a poet to study themes and craft. I used a Keynote presentation to organize the poems I wanted to use in my lessons. I was able to find each poem on the web and use a screenshot image for each slide. Many poems were accompanied by images from book pages or covers.

The anthology was always readily available. I used our projector when the class needed to view a poem. Students could also access it independently. This year I plan to add my teaching points in the presenter notes section so I can easily browse for specific craft, such as imagery or line breaks.

tags: Keynote poem poetry anthology Reader's Workshop