My Reading Workshop is an environment where students recommend good books to each other through interesting projects, not book reports!

My history with reading workshops: I taught at two schools in my past where I disagreed with the school's reading expectations. I am so fortunate to now be in a project-based classroom where I am allowed to make use of a Reading Workshop for my readers. Like a Writing Workshop, there is no formula for every teacher who sets up a Reading Workshop; any teacher trying this technique needs to adapt and borrow, adapt and borrow. I share my adapted ideas below and invite you to borrow what you will.

At one high school where I worked and wasn't happy about the reading instruction, it was all about the classics. Now I have nothing against the classics, so don't send me a nasty e-mail. But this school required every student to read the exact same classics depending on what year of school they were in. "As freshmen, they read these four books in this order," and I was handed a list. "As sophomores, they read this list." Etc. As you might imagine, teachers shared a lot of study guides at those schools, and those study guides were often older than a few of the students currently enrolled. As you might imagine, we had our fair share of low reading skills in each class, and the last thing those kids needed to be handed was a lofty classic. So many of my students weren't challenged by this curriculum; they were overwhelmed by it, and I had nothing but sympathy.

At the other school where I worked and was less than impressed with the reading curriculum, it was all about book reports and Accelerated Reader scores. Blech! I believe the book report--like the hamburger paragraph--to be one the lowest-level formulaic writing assignments that exist only in schools. Where else is a human being expected to write a book report? No where. What teacher can actually make a traditional book report an exciting thing to write? No one. As for Accelerated Reader points, if you're having to entice kids to your earn points for taking dull multiple-choice tests after reading, then you are driving the love of reading out of your top readers.

I have students who tell me they are "non-readers," and I always reply with, "No, you just haven't found the right book to read...yet." I wonder how many of these self-professed non-readers come from schools where a love a reading was driven from them by overly-traditional reading curriculum or by quick-fix computer-based programs that dangle points in front of students as rewards for reading.

I believe students--no matter what their reading levels--need to be appropriately challenged in meaningful ways after completing a book, be it an assigned book or a free choice title. I have been working hard in my classroom to establish a reading workshop program where students create authentic projects once every five weeks based on a book. The goal of each project is that students must become "advocates for the book," so students must be on the lookout for a book that interests them. With each project, the students are required to share their projects (in a variety of ways), trying to convince fellow classmates that this book is for them too.

The first trick--I am discovering--is to help those self-professed "non-readers" find their first book so they can begin participating in the process, and the second trick is to provide a variety of project options (not book reports!) that are equally balanced in their expectations from the readers.

On this page, I am beginning to post materials/ideas as I make discoveries about the two tricks above. By June, I expect to house an entire page of resources and discoveries about this new-to-me, project-based approach to promoting reading skills.

If, as I begin posting ideas below, you want to share ideas back with me, I would love to hear from you on ways you outsmart the traditional book report format or the Accelerated Reader Program: corbett@corbettharrison.com

At present, here is our Reading Workshop Calendar; we usually spend five weeks on each novel assignment