Reading Culture through Creative Writing and Digital Space
To promote a reading culture, I would implement writing clubs during lunchbreaks, writing workshops for classes, and a library website that showcases student work. I would love to involve students in helping create posts, write reviews about books, and create videos of book trailers, as encouraged by guest speakers in the podcast “‘We Want Them to Be Creators over Consumers.’ ” During these programs, students would also develop their digital literacy. The following video from mediasmarts defines digital media and how important it is to teach this as a literacy for students.
Video from Mediasmarts, " Introduction to Digital Literacy:Digital Literacy 101"There are several activities I would lead in writing club and workshops. I have found great advice on starting a writing club by teachers on Teachwire. My teaching technique would be inquiry-based instruction. This means students would be given the opportunity to write creatively and freely on topics that interests them. Activities would include writing tutorials, stories, book reviews, poems, news, and comics. Students could also video record themselves discussing books or create book trailers to excite other students into reading. Another project that students could do is create fake social media profiles of their favorite book character to display on the library’s Facebook or Instagram. Lastly, students could create digital bulletin boards of their favourite books and post them on the school website. I found these ideas and more regarding social media as a form of creative writing for students from two websites: We Are Teachers and Bored Teachers.
Tools that I would like to offer students to encourage reading are digital devices and apps. Such devices include Ipads, Chromebooks, mobile devices, computers, and laptops. Students could use these to access multiple forms of text, such as ebooks, reading games, audiobooks, etc. Apps that I hope to offer to students would be Epic, Google Classroom, Book Creator, Trello, Evernote, Green Screen, RAZ KIDS, Tumblebookslibrary from Vancouver Island Regional Library, Schooljumper, Newsela, and more. Implementing technology as a reading tool is a great way to encourage students to read, as emphasized by Nancy Knapp in their article "Using Technology to Foster “Real Reading” in the School Library and Beyond."
Works Cited
AuthorAmy. “15 Creative Ways to Use Social Media in the Classroom.” Bored Teachers, 24 Aug.
2023, www.boredteachers.com/post/15-creative-ways-to-use-social-media-in-the-classroom.
Gray, Kyleen. “How I Use Instagram, Twitter & Snapchat to Turn My Students into Readers.” We Are
Teachers, 24 Oct. 2017, www.weareteachers.com/social-media-activities-for-ela/.
Knapp, Nancy, “Using Technology to Foster 'Real Reading' in the School Library and Beyond,”
Department of Education, Volume 48, No. 1,September 2019,
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1227429.pdf
Ministry of Education and Child Care. “BC’s Digital Literacy Framework.” Province of
British Columbia, Province of British Columbia, 15 Mar. 2022,
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/k-12/teach/resources-for-
teachers/digital-literacy
Wrigley, Jenifer Smith and Simon. “Writing Club – How to Set One Up.” Teachwire, teach co, 10
May 2023, www.teachwire.net/news/set-up-a-school-writing-club-and-boost-childrens-
confidence/.
“Teacher Resources.” MediaSmarts, Canada’s Centre for Digital Media Literacy
mediasmarts.ca/teacher-resources.
“‘We Want Them to Be Creators over Consumers’ ” Smart Social Podcast: Keeping Students Safe
so They Can Shine Online, created by Josh Ochs , 7 Sept. 2022.
Hi Claudia! You have a lot of neat ideas of ways you can promote reading culture in your school. I think your idea of having students create fake social media profiles of their favourite book character would be a lot of fun for students. I think it is something I would like trying within my school as well :) thanks for the ideas!
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of using a writing club to promote reading - something I often forget about, that intimate connection between love of reading and writing. Students who identify as an author, will be so much more interested in other authors and their works. I love your comment, "This means students would be given the opportunity to write creatively and freely on topics that interests them." - I think students don't get this type of freedom very often in many classrooms, and many are craving it.
ReplyDeleteI agree it is important to involve students in promoting a reading culture. Last year, I had my grade five and six students create videos of book trailers. I think it was a successful strategy. Students really enjoyed looking at each other’s suggestions and it highlighted some books that students may never of chose without watching the recommendation.
ReplyDeleteThat must have been so much fun for you and the students! Yes projects like these would encourage more confident and excited readers, especially when they're presented like movies.
DeleteYou have left your readers with many practical ideas and tools to explore. I appreciate the connections you are making both to the importance of writing as well as to the importance of digital literacy. You may want to start and end your post with a more formal introduction and conclusion. This will help your readers understand the context of the post and keep them coming back to interact with your learning journey.
ReplyDelete