Text recommendation?

Hello colleagues, Could anyone recommend a fairly short text on an engaging topic-- either fiction or non fiction. We plan to read this during a 2-week specialty course. The students are high intermediate and advanced.

Thanks for any and all suggestions!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL CoP

 

Comments

 

Hi Susan, 

I'm not sure what you are looking for - but here are some of my favorites that I have used in the past - with a quick explanation of why I used them: 

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. 
Rationale: Each chapter could be a stand alone section and they are high interest reads about how people make rapic decisions. This opens the door to so many active discussions in the classroom about how we make decisions that effect our daily lives. 

Day of Tears by Julius Lester: 
Rationale: This is a young adult piece of literature based on the largest slave auction in American History. It is told in multiple perspectives and connects literature to history. Very powerful read. 

An American Plague by Jim Murphy
Rationale: This is another young adult piece of literature that ties history and science together. 

I hope these help. I am not sure what the goals of the 2 week course would be so I have tried to provide you with a couple of options, but I am sure I can provide you with a much more tangible and meanignful list of resources. I use young adult literature often in the classroom. The stories can be read in a short period of time and are often of very high interest / quality. 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, Kathy and Rosemary, for these recommendations. I appreciate the link to the American literature site that features many resources by well known authors, e.g., Kate Chopin, Jack London, etc. that are free to all. I have decided to use the Simon Northup story, Stolen Into Slavery, written by Fradin and Fradin with my advanced students this fall. I plan to implement many of the ideas (e.g., talking to the text, metacognitive journaling) from Reading for Understanding: How Reading Apprenticeship Improves Disciplinary Learning in Secondary and College Classrooms. Some of you will recall that we facilitated a book group discussion of this teacher resource on LINCS in January, 2015.

I will also draw upon the Literature Circle concept for the fall class. With Literature Circles, students work in small discussion groups and take on different roles. Some of the possible roles, based on the ideas of Harvey Daniels who originated Literature Circles, include:

  • Discussion Director: Comes up with question for discussion and leads the group in discussing the questions.
  • Vocabulary Enricher: Chooses 3-5 important words from the text and talks about the meaning of the words and why they are important.
  • Literary Luminary: Chooses one or more selections in the text that had a particular impact on them in some way. They might select a section because it was inspiring, funny, thought-provoking, confusing, moving, etc.
  • Connector: Makes a connection between the text and something pertinent in their lives or possibly makes a connection to something else they have read.
  • Illustrator: Creates a picture that illustrates something personally relevant and important in the text.
  • Summarizer: Summarizes the main points of the text in their own words

I would love to hear from those who have used Literature Circles effectively. Have you used these roles and/or other ones? Please share your good ideas about how to make this work well.

[With regard to the 2-week summer class, I'm still considering what text to use. Given the 2-week time frame, the text will need to be very short. As it turns out, I'm not sure what level the students will need. If anyone has suggestions for some easier texts, I would welcome those ideas.]

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, AELL Community of Practice