Customer Reviews

"You Gotta BE the Book": Teaching Engaged and Reflective Reading with Adolescents, Second Edition (Language and Literacy Series (Teachers College Pr)) (Language & Literacy)

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While "being the book" is a lovely concept, the book does not live up to the hype and grandeous accolades it has received in the reading community. Instead of full on "book being" immersion, I pulled some concepts from Wilheilm's book that best fit my teaching style. The eighth graders (in particular) loved playing characters- especially boys volunteering to play the female roles. Kids are still able to talk about a book they read over a year ago when we applied some of these reading strategies.
The key to making "being the book" work is choosing stories that are worthy of the time it will take to set up the reading experiences. In addition, I started small and added in the reading strategies based on the personality of the class. I love using some of the strategies that were abandoned in primary school. Middle and High schoolers are kids, too.