{"id":1020,"date":"2013-10-07T17:43:36","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T22:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/?p=1020"},"modified":"2015-09-08T13:02:28","modified_gmt":"2015-09-08T18:02:28","slug":"book-speed-dating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/?p=1020","title":{"rendered":"Book Speed Dating"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most powerful things I can do for my students is work to promote reading for fun and helping students find books that they will enjoy. I feel like middle school is one of those key times in life where many students either take the path to become a life-long reader&#8230;or not. So I try to do as much as possible to talk to my students about what they&#8217;re reading and help them find books that will get them hooked!<\/p>\n<p>One activity that I&#8217;ve found to be extremely successful this year is a round of &#8220;Book Speed Dating.&#8221; I know that this is an activity that many librarians have done for years&#8230;it&#8217;s tried and true for a reason!<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how I&#8217;ve put together this activity:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I pulled books that I frequently recommend from 7 different genres and put them in boxes at each of my 7 tables. It exposes readers to new genres that they may not seek out on their own.<\/li>\n<li>Students come in and decide on a ranking system they&#8217;ll use to rank the books they preview (scale of 1-10, five star ratings, etc.).<\/li>\n<li>I set a timer (like the one projected on the screen) for five minutes. For the first 30 seconds, they can peruse the books in the box at their table and select a book. Then, they spend 4 minutes reading the book to see if it hooks them. With 30 seconds remaining, they make note of the title of the book and give it a ranking.<\/li>\n<li>If at any time they find a book they want to check out, they can hold on to that book. All other books go back in the box, we rotate the boxes, and repeat this activity 4-5 times.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/10145513835_096c5e3515_b.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1022\" alt=\"10145513835_096c5e3515_b\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/10145513835_096c5e3515_b-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/10145513835_096c5e3515_b-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/10145513835_096c5e3515_b.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I always get great feedback from teachers and students with this activity&#8230;they love it! By the final round, about half of the students will typically have a book that they want to check out. And ALL of the students have spent some time with a book from a genre that&#8217;s outside of their typical reading comfort zone.<\/p>\n<p>I did this several weeks ago with my 8th graders, and this week the 6th graders are having their turn. I especially like that I can customize the boxes for the classes\/grades that I have visiting. And I LOVE that lots of book replenishing is needed after each class!<\/p>\n<p>Do you do something similar to this? What other tried and true activities do you use for the love of reading?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most powerful things I can do for my students is work to promote reading for fun and helping students find books that they will enjoy. I feel like middle school is one of those key times in life where many students either take the path to become a life-long reader&#8230;or not. So<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/?p=1020\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,11,23,24,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-library-lessons","category-middle-books","category-middle-lessons","category-reading-promo","category-resources-links"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mightylittlelibrarian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}