Every March, our county creates a theme to promote reading, so two years ago, I decided to adopt their theme to create challenges that would allow students to respond to their reading in meaningful and creative ways beyond a book report. I also was determined to deepen my understanding and proficiency with Canvas, our learning management system (LMS).
First, I created activities related to the theme (first year: Level Up With Reading; second year: Reading Rocks!). Note: the choice boards of activities are attached at the bottom of this post. Middle schoolers tend to procrastinate, so I developed rubrics for each activity so that they could check their work against the expectations for the activity AND so I could evaluate them quickly near the deadline.
First, I created activities related to the theme (first year: Level Up With Reading; second year: Reading Rocks!). Note: the choice boards of activities are attached at the bottom of this post. Middle schoolers tend to procrastinate, so I developed rubrics for each activity so that they could check their work against the expectations for the activity AND so I could evaluate them quickly near the deadline.
I had to reassure myself, If you build it, they will come...IF I promoted the bejeezus out of it. I am lucky that I see every student in the school every two weeks in a mixed fixed/flex library model, so I had a relatively captive audience.
When I asked them, What if you could game with your friends at school? kids immediately bought in. I gave general descriptions of the types of challenges and told them they needed to join my Canvas course to participate. Memes and Minecraft building representations tended to be the most popular of the options, but participation in each challenge was pretty even. I posted many of the entries on social media or printed them to use for displays. I loved hearing the conversations around books and around the standings for the challenges. Kids actively encouraged each other: "Man, you gotta finish your challenge! I need to kick your butt in Mario Kart!"
Out of 1200 students, the first year I had 136 students sign up. Of those, 60 completed the challenges and got to game in the luxury of the Game Truck during their Connections class. It was a dynamite way to celebrate reading, community, and the end of Milestones testing.
This year, the excitement spread and I had 205 students sign up. And then COVID hit. (See Part 2 for how we pivoted).
level_up_book_challenge_choice_board.pdf |
book_challenge_choice_board_2020_reading_rocks.pdf |