If you're looking to reinvigorate the reading responses in your classroom, look no further. National Board Certified teacher and author Marilyn Pryle is sharing with educators several post-reading response activities that do a good job at getting her students thinking creatively.

In a post on MiddleWeb.com, Pryle gives several examples of post-reading activities that are easy to adapt across classrooms and grade levels.

Her first tip is to develop and make use of the reading response. According to Pryle, she begins her school year by introducing students to 10-15 different kinds of reading response entires (Ask a Question, Find Foreshadowing, etc.) She lets students pick their entry type and then write a minimum of four sentences plus evidence from the text to complete it.

"These rules force students to think of an original idea about the text or to elaborate on something they may have briefly annotated," she said, according to the article.

"I usually have students do RRs for homework, and then use their RRs as a springboard and compass for discussion. I often begin class by asking students to share their RRs. As individual students speak up, the rest of us jump to their cited text and follow along."

At the end of the semester, students are required to do an analysis paper on their reading response entries to become engaged in their own learning.

Pryle also shares modern examples that make use of something her students are very familiar with: social media.

"Applying real-word literacy practices, like Twitter chats and To-Do Lists, to in-class texts engages students and deepens understanding," she said.

So, she has her students use Twitter to create Twitter handles and conversations between characters. The activity is a student favorite and allows for students to get creative with the text with a challenge of only 140 characters.

In a similar fashion, she has her students brainstorm about the text's characters to create To-Do lists for them, an activity she says is the best to get her students' creative juices flowing. She requires, of course, evidence from the text and a minimum of ten tasks.

Read more of her reading activity suggestions here and comment your thoughts below. 

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

07/14/2015