Do Reading Logs Work?

Do Reading Logs Work?

That was a question I would have answered with a resounding “No” before trying something different from the reading logs I was used to. For the majority of reading logs, students would have to keep track of their pages and write a few sentences to an entire paragraph about what was going on in their books.

A student confessed to me that prior to the types of reading log assignments they have to do for me, he would just fake it. He went so far as to make up a book and write logs about it. I asked what he would have done if the teacher had asked him to produce the book. He told me he would have found a book similar to what he’d told his teacher happened in his book, but luckily that hadn’t happened. Students make life so much harder on themselves sometimes.

Too bad they can’t use their powers for good.

Getting Social Changes Things?

I wanted to make students accountable to their peers. I hoped this added dimension to the regular log would motivate students to write! I also wanted them to become engaged. I may have been a little naive, but I also wanted them to look forward to interacting with others… about books.

Reading has always been an important part of my life. Sometimes, it was an escape; other times, I simply wanted to walk in someone else’s shoes for a while. Discovering a new book was like unearthing a buried treasure, over and over again, with each new story. In that way, as a reader, I felt like I had discovered a secret only a few others knew.

Is it so unreasonable to want my students to have the same relationship with books? I believe that kids that don’t like reading haven’t had the chance to get to know the “right book.”

I just needed a way for them to connect. The first online log was geared towards creating a deeper understanding of their character. Students introduced their protagonist to the reading group (i.e. others in their classroom) and had to respond to classmates about whether they would be “besties” or “frenemies” of  the characters in the other students’ books by examining similarities and differences.

Students were starting to get engaged. Many loved how Schoology discussions were similar to Facebook. They enjoyed reading the responses from their peers and commenting in real-time to each other. I made sure to guide the discussion by assigning them a peer response task, which is different each week.

*Discussing expectations for online interactions, and telling them I could see ALL responses, even if they are deleted (and would follow up with students behaving inappropriately) helped maintain politeness in the online environment. 

The next step was finding a way to draw them deeper into the story they were reading, while simultaneously encouraging them to keep reading. Since main characters are generally introduced in the beginning, that was a great jumping off point.

By the time the next reading log was due, students were expected to have completed ten pages a day, or about one-hundred pages, as the only homework due for me. In class, we read aloud approximately 20 pages in a 50-minute class period, so 70 pages a week, when students could pick the book (they could adjust page size, font size, and word count per page by picking a “just-right for them” book) and also had the entire period Fridays as SSR time.

I needed to find an assignment they could do, if they were where they were supposed to be in their reading. *I did not want to go through another marking period of students waiting to the week before report cards to start their books!

Conflict can be a Good Thing?

For our second reading log assignment, I wanted to delve deeper into the emotion of their books. This time, students would write about a situation their characters found emotionally overwhelming.

As the plot develops, the main character will be faced with several ups and downs. After all, that’s what keeps the reader’s attention. Students would “set the stage” by explaining any background information we need to know to understand why the situation is emotional for their character.

One student wrote that her main character has a fear of boys and has bad dreams every night because a boy tried to take advantage of her before.

Another wrote about how a girl tries to kill a soldier she fell in love with. The background is that no one knows she is already dead and she wants him to stay with her forever.

Making an Emotional Connection?

Empathy can be very powerful. Students must respond how they would have reacted if they were in the same situation as their character.

My overall goal is to get students invested in their books. I saw that interest on a small scale when students discussed the books they read at the end of last marking period. Those that finished their books had a few requests to check out the book next, as well as more questions from their peers about their books when their talk with me was finished.

I have been surprised through this process, too. I can’t believe how open the students are about their feelings in their posts. Their explanations are always accompanied by the reasons they would have felt/reacted a certain way. I have learned so much about my students. I understand them better. I have gotten to know what makes them tick, what their interests are, and what motivates them based on their responses in the weekly reading log.

In order to encourage timely conversation, I set Thursday night as the lock time for responses. This way, I can discuss their books with them in class during the time we have set aside for reading of their individual books. We spend a few minutes at the start of class discussing some of their comments before students set a page goal for the day and start reading.

Responding to Peers

For this log, students had to critique their classmates. They were required to give one positive and one to-work-on comment. They told their peers how well they thought their classmate did portraying the emotion of the scene described in their posting. They suggested what the writer could have done to make the description better, more emotional.

I make a point to reply to students who turn in their posts early, as an added incentive. Sometimes, I will write about the book I am reading to give students the opportunity to respond to me as well. (*As an added bonus, I can model what I expect.)

Finally, the students share the page they are currently on. *This is the page I have the right to test them up to at any time.

So far, the reading log discussions have been a huge success. Stay tuned for the next installment. Want to try this week’s log  (Week 2) with you students? Here’s last week’s log in case you want to start from the beginning.

Together in Teaching,

Elyza Rodriguez 🙂