When you really think about it, it takes a lot of time, patience, effort and that certain je ne sais quoi, to pull off a great booktalk. Here are my steps. Of course, everyone's are different, but this is my tried and true method:
Step 1: Pick some books, but not just any books! I have a mix of all types, from girls to guys; mystery to thriller, fantasy to science fiction, even adult.
Step 2: Start reading and start weeding. Not all the books I read go on the list - just the ones I know will catch attention!
Step 3: Think in book trailer mode. I mix up 20% of a booktalk with trailers vs. traditional.
Step 4: BUY MULTIPLE COPIES BEFORE BOOKTALK!!!!!
Step 5: Create different types of media for booktalking - from glogster to animtot to powerpoint to digital displays in the library to hardcopy displays...time to start!
Step 6: Spend a moderate amount of time annotating all the books without trailers you're going to booktalk
Step 7: PRACTICE. And if you don't have time, consider your first class practice and keep adding and adding and modifying and modifying. But always go in with confidence
And so, I'm booktalking tomorrow to ADULTS....which is way scarier than kids...so wish me luck! I'll post some of my annotations tomorrow :)
1 comment:
I write booktalks as I read the books and keep them categorized by genre. If I can find a book trailer on YouTube I use it, but I haven't created them yet. I booktalk different books to each class, so that a class can grab them as soon as I've finished booktalking -- I try to do 7 - 8 books per class. Week after next for example, I'm booktalking to 19 classes, so I've got to pull about 180 books. It's not so bad, because I keep count of which books I've done for each class, so I can rotate them around to a certain degree.
Booktalking is tiring work, but it's my favorite part of the job.
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