"Inspired reading, not required reading"
Over the next few months, the grade 9 students of the Calgary Science School will be reading books of their choosing, reviewing and critiquing them in search of the ultimate novel for their class. Taking inspiration from the CBC's "Canada Reads" contest, all 100 students, 5 teachers and 2 student teachers will all be participating. The project will run through a series of "rounds" and students will track their reading, thinking and writing about their selected books through personal blogs and videos. In the end, the students will work together to select one book that is the most meaningful and important for their classes of 25 that will then form the final four that will face off for the CSS Reads 2013 title (and will be the four reading choices for a 2013-14 Grade 9 novel study).
the final four!April 25
Congratulations to our final 4 novels (one from each class). As a celebration of the efforts of all of our grade 9 students in this project, we staged a special "CSS Reads Grand Finale" on April 25th. The final four novels were: Ellen Hopkins' Crank John Boynes' The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Paolo Coelho's The Alchemist Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man All 100 students participated as we were rejoined by "CSS-Ghomeshi" (Mr. McWilliam) for the closing debate. The four finalists did a tremendous job and they all represented their novels admirably. Check out the live twitter feed and highlights from the closing debate on the right (or follow us @CSSReads). |
css reads grand finale
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Round Four - the classroom winners
April 22 - 23
The winning books from each of the group debates, plus one "wild-card" per class went through to the classroom finals. On day one, the entire class of students had the opportunity to ask questions of each of the finalists. All of the debate questions were student-generated, CSS Reads really is about Grade 9's choosing novels that are important for Grade 9's. After a class vote, the top two books and their defenders squared off in the classroom finals on day two, bringing us down to the Final 4! (click on the novel titles below to read the blog entries by each of the novel defenders)
The winning books from each of the group debates, plus one "wild-card" per class went through to the classroom finals. On day one, the entire class of students had the opportunity to ask questions of each of the finalists. All of the debate questions were student-generated, CSS Reads really is about Grade 9's choosing novels that are important for Grade 9's. After a class vote, the top two books and their defenders squared off in the classroom finals on day two, bringing us down to the Final 4! (click on the novel titles below to read the blog entries by each of the novel defenders)
9.1 FinalistsBoyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Maclean's A River Runs Through It Shaben's Into The Abyss |
9.2 finalists |
9.3 finalistsCoelho's The Alchemist
Higson's The Enemy Dashner's The Kill Order Ferruci's The Power of Kindness King's The Shining |
9.4 finalistsMartel's Life of Pi
Tolkien's The Hobbit Green's The Fault in our Stars Crichton's Jurassic Park Bradbury's The Illustrated Man Vizzini's It's Kind of a Funny Story Zusak's The Book Thief |
Above: CSS Reads: The Teachers' Debate - special thanks to Mr. McWilliam for being our "Jian Ghomeshi," and to Niran for filming the "episode."
Below: Edmodo was a great tool for the students to use in their debate groups for daily de-briefs and sharing information about their novels. |
ROUND THREEApril 15 - 18
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Round twoMarch 23 - April 12
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OUR SCHOOL IS EXCITED ABOUT CSS READS!
This video is a book introduction and defence from Dr. Garry McKinnon, our school superintendent. Students are working on their own video critiques of their 2 novels this week. Garry and the entire administration are very supportive of our project and they will be dropping-in on the student debates next week. |
This clip from CBC's "Canada Reads 2013" is an example of the type of process that our students will be going through.
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ROUND ONEFebruary 25 - March 22
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