Library Journals

At our school, each class goes to the library once a week. For the departmentalized grades, the Language Arts teacher usually takes each of his/her classes. In my case, that means I take 3 classes of 6th graders to the library, and our day is Monday. To be honest, it makes for a nice way to ease in to the work week!

In the library my students are required to choose 3 books: a fiction, a non-fiction, and a book of their choice. All of these books should be (roughly) on their reading level. The kids show me their books before they can check them out with our librarian, so I can check the levels, genres, etc.

The students are responsible for reading their books throughout the week, both in class and at home. At the end of the week, they have to write about one of them. Each Friday, in their library journals, my students write me a letter telling me about their book. The letters need to follow the standard friendly-letter format, and consist of 5 sentences. The first sentence should tell me title/author, and often their opinion of the book. The rest of the letter can tell any number of things: what they liked/hated, favorite/least favorite part, new facts learned, predictions for the end of the book-honestly, whatever they want to share with me about the book.

I respond to each letter each week (yep, that's 48, if you're counting), and with most students, it creates a back & forth dialogue between the two of us. At the end of the school year, the kids will have a nice comprehensive "list" of the books they chose to read throughout the year.