Introducing Goodreads!
Our students were beyond excited to learn all about Goodreads! They feel grown up having graduated from physical “reading logs” and love the social interaction Goodreads provides. It is much more dynamic than reading logs as you update what you are currently reading (so the page by page tracking option is still there) and what you want to read in the future. Also, when you finish a book, you rate it, review it, and can recommend it to others! In a classroom where we really could talk about books all day, Goodreads provides a framework for reviewing and recommending books as well as a meaningful way to get ideas for new books to read.
Some of our more competitive and numbers minded students also love the “challenge” option and how Goodreads automatically keeps track of the number of books you read. They set goals for the number of books they hope to read in the remaining months of 2016 and thought critically about what was realistic for them as a reader and how to make sure they could meet their goals. They also LOVE keeping track of each other's challenges as it is far more interesting than looking at your own!
Our last year’s students called Goodreads “book book” (“Facebook for books” - took us a while to figure that out!) and many of them continue to update their profiles and interact with us through Goodreads even though it is not required for class (and we are no longer technically their teachers). It has been a wonderful tool to help us usher our students into being “grown up” readers who read for fun, think critically about their books, and develop their knowledge and interests through reading!
How do you motivate your students to be social, active, and analytical readers?