Teacher Resources! Come and get them!

Resource List

Without a doubt, my biggest resources were the authors themselves. Nothing stood out more to me when developing my own entry points to the literature than the reasons the authors had for writing the books. Many of my activities come from listening to interviews with the authors, and I intend to incorporate much of that multi-medium into my everyday teaching when using books such as these. The authors’ websites are as follows:

Gordon Korman’s Website
http://gordonkorman.com/

Gary Paulsen’s Website
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/garypaulsen/

Gary D. Schmidt’s Goodreads.com Author Page
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/96375.Gary_D_Schmidt

Walter Dean Myers’s Website
http://www.walterdeanmyers.net/

James Heneghan’s Website
http://www.jamesheneghan.com/

Although I didn’t include this in my portfolio, another resource I came across during my research was this book:

GUYS WRITE FOR GUYS READ
Jon Scieszka
This led me to look at his website:
http://www.guysread.com/
This covers an extensive list of books that appeal to boys of all ages, in a boy-friendly format. The book contains a series of snippets from a selection of these books, and is absolutely hilarious. I would use it as a read aloud for motivation.

A Pretty Decent Interview with Gary Schmidt on a Writer’s Blog
http://misserinmarie.blogspot.com/2008/05/sbbt-interview-gary-d-schmidt.html

A Book Talk and Reading Guide for another Gary Schmidt Book
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/teachers_guides/9780553494952.pdf




When looking for activities and lessons for alternative book reports and strategy lessons, I was amazed at what I found at the National Council for the Teachers of English’s (NCTE’s) Read Write Think website.
http://www.readwritethink.org/

Scholastic.com has an intensive list of books and summaries as well.
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/index.jsp
Although it’s a publishing website, I really like it. I don’t feel like they try to sell me anything. I especially like their “Book Alike” feature that allows me to type in any book and find books just like it, or at the same reading level.

Goodreads
http://www.goodreads.com/
I call this site My Space for book junkies. It’s a social networking site that requires membership, but it allows users to connect by listing the books they’ve read or want to read and talk about them. I use it as a teacher to gain recommendations. I use it as a reader personally as well. I haven’t used it with students, but I suppose they could use it to gain recommendations for readings as well. Think, “I liked this book, so I will read this book…”

LibraryThing
http://www.librarything.com/
Like Goodreads, but I don’t have a membership to attest to this site. It’s the same idea of book sharing online, just in a different format. See yourself and decide which one you like better. Word of mouth is always best, but this will do in a pinch!

Blogger
https://www.blogger.com/start
An easy way to set up a website, or share book or lesson plans with other teachers. A lot of my ideas come from teachers who blog in other parts of the country and world. It’s also an easy way for a teacher to communicate with parents and parents to see what students are doing in class.

A Comprehensive Teacher Blog
http://lessonplanlounge.blogspot.com/

No More Bullying Lesson
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=935

Nancy Keane’s Children’s Literature Webpage
http://nancykeane.com/
Excellent resource for anything children’s literature related. I like a lot of her book talks and podcasts.

Blogging Photo Lesson I used for No More Dead Dogs (but is applicable to other units and certainly adaptable!)
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=1064

Discussion Questions for No More Dead Dogs
http://www.multcolib.org/talk/guides-nomore.html

A Gordon Korman Book List
http://litplans.com/authors/Gordon_Korman.html

Lawn Boy Video
http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=76428&title=Lawn_Boy

Other Lawn Boy Links
http://suzyred.com/2008lawn.html
http://booksforchildren.pbworks.com/Gary-Paulsen,-Lawn-Boy
http://www.librarything.com/work/2338131

Graphic Organizers
http://www.sanchezclass.com/reading-graphic-organizers.htm
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=2983


Of course, if you have any questions or would like me to e-mail you any part of this presentation, I would be happy to do so. I am always looking for better ways to teach books, and would welcome your feedback!