This is the second year that my students have participated in the Irma Black Book Award Program. We started by re-reading last year's winner and exploring the criteria.
Given my experience last year, I decided to pair down the criteria to two main questions:
Each week we read and discussed one of the books.
The week before the big vote, the students voted with their feet and joined others who also felt strongly about each particular book. They then shared examples as to how the book best met the criteria. We finished by having each group present their viewpoint to the whole group. Practicing persuasive speaking is a great skill to work on.
I explained that this was an opportunity to revisit their own thinking around a book and that after listening to each other they might reconsider their own vote.
And then it was voting day!
I love opening the ballot box!
AND my second graders chose...The Night Gardener
It was another close vote this year.
The Night Gardener - 33 votesQuackers - 30 votes
A Hungry Lion or a Dwindling Assortment of Other Animals - 19 votes
Little Red and the Very Hungry Lion - 14 votes
Those small group conversations and persuasive presentations gave the students an opportunity to both confirm their thinking as well as practice sharing their thinking. I think you can see the results of this work in their reasoning behind their votes:
The Night Gardener
Quackers
The Hungry Lion or a Dwindling Assortment of Other Animals
Little Red and the Very Hungry Lion
No comments:
Post a Comment