At the gym today, I came across this poster in the women’s locker room. It made me feel really great about working out – I did not procrastinate, complain, or come up with excuses. I just did it!
It got me thinking that this would be a great poster for my classroom. As soon as I get a spare minute (maniacal laughter inserted here), I will make this into a colorful, inspirational poster. It would be a great discussion piece when I check in with my more reluctant students. Just thought I would share!
If you wind up making this into a classroom poster, I’d love to see it! You can do it!
I set up a new interactive bulletin board today that I am very excited to start in the fall! The idea came from the ‘Life is Better Messy Anyway‘ blog. The Reading Graffiti Board is an interactive board in which each student can post one quote per book that they read. This encourages them to make very thoughtful decisions about THE BEST quote from their book, since they must choose only one. I can see a lot of my students getting very excited to write on the wall deface the classroom. 8th graders think they are so bad 😉
I am also looking forward to using this opportunity to teach my students how to correctly quote a source. I will require the following:
Copy the sentence(s) exactly as they are found in the book
Put “quotes” around the entire sentence/passage
Cite the author and the title of the book
I bought 2 silver sharpies, which I will be keeping in my desk. Students will have to have their quote pre-approved first, and I think this will help eliminate any possible shenanigans. If time permits within the class period, I’d love to invite students to read their quotes out loud and share why they chose it as the best quote. I will encourage students to choose quotes that are though-provoking, dramatic, interesting, and rich with word choice and imagery.
In addition to encouraging students to reflect and share their own reading, I hope this is an inspiration to other students who are looking for the next good book to read. I can just see students crowding around the board, reading a really juicy quote, and thinking, “Hey – I’d love to read that!”
To set the example, I started by adding the very first quote. It is from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. “Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”
If you are interested in the Reading Graffiti banner, you can download it for free here:
At the gym today, I came across this poster in the women’s locker room. It made me feel really great about working out – I did not procrastinate, complain, or come up with excuses. I just did it!
