EIPS Read In Week 2016

  One World, Many Voices

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The goal of Read In Week is to encourage a life-long love of reading and enhance literacy awareness involving students, staff, parents, and community members in reading. This year we will celebrate Read In Week on October 3rd to 7th with the theme ​One World, Many Voices. We share one world and fill it with many voices. Through reading, we learn from other people's lives and stories. Reading can inspire us to raise our own voices to tell our own stories. We look forward to seeing how this year’s Read In Week is celebrated throughout EIPS and encourage you to share your school's highlights using the hashtag #eipsreads.

A few ideas for the week could be…

• Participate in the Read In Week kick off  event live streamed on Oct. 3 at 10:00 a.m. from the University of Alberta
• Explore the Edmonton and  EIPS  Read In week websites where you can access many resources including book lists and read aloud tips
• “Eyes of Another” display, highlighting how empathy can be fostered through sharing other people's stories
• “Read Around the World”  bulletin board locating areas in the world where authors, staff, and students are from and where books are set
• Use the free printable Read In Week posters and images on your school website/newsletters (French and English versions)
• Reading historical fiction series such as, Dear Canada, I am Canada, I Survived , My Story or other books that highlights different voices. Here are some lists:
• Edmonton Public School’s  First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Collection
• Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Recommended Fiction and Nonfiction Resources for K-12 Schools  
• ELL Dual Language Books
• Discuss world issues through books such as Scholastic’s Issues 21 (Gr. 6-12 series addressing health, environment, human rights, culture and media), I am Malala, A Long Walk to Water, graphic novel Here I am, and picture books When I was Eight and Those Shoes
• Read biographies of favorite musicians, comedians, politicians, or sports figures
• Read about real heroes and ask people who have made an impact in the community to volunteer
• Highlight powerful stories from the list of Caldecott and Newbery award winning books
• Create a speech bubble bulletin board with a heading “What do you think?” or “What’s this book saying?” where students respond to text they are reading
• Have students share their own voice, by having them create their own endings to favourite books. Explore the world of fan fiction. Enroll your class in Story Wars.
• Show www.teachingbooks.net videos of authors sharing their reasons for writing their stories along with other access additional resources for books
• Read aloud to students:
• How to Read to students over 12 years old.
• Grade 9-10 Nonfiction Read Aloud Books for Core Classes
• Grade 11 - 12 Nonfiction Read Aloud Books for Core Classes
• Read Aloud Favourites
• Read Alouds for Middle Readers (Junior High)
• Great Read Aloud From The New York Times
• EIPS Livebinder Read Aloud Resource
• In Defense of Read Alouds (Book)
• Invite a speaker to share his or her story
• Participate in the EIPS author tour at Sherwood Heights School at 7:00PM on Sept. 26th.
• Explore format as voice--how does a story change when the format changes? Highlight reading: graphic novels, digital website, ebooks, interactives
• Some Interactive Sites that highlight perspective:
• Letters From the Trunk (Immigrant Stories)
• Time Immemorial (FNMI)
• Tracking the buffalo (FNMI)
• Walking Together (FNMI)
• Seven Stories (Immigrant Stories)
• A World of Disputed Territories (reflects most of the land disputes in the world)
• Newsmap (reflects the constantly changing landscape of news)
• Identity video
• Create/join a book discussion group at their school or public library
• Extend the spirit of Read In Week all year long (see below for some ideas)

HOW TO EXTEND THE SPIRIT OF READ IN WEEK ALL YEAR LONG IN YOUR LIBRARIES AND CLASSROOMS

How will you keep your literacy focus for the entire year?  Although Read In Week is a wonderful week of celebrating reading, let’s do it all year long! Below are some ideas to consider.

• October - Global Read Aloud - Oct.3 official kick off
• November - NaNoWriMo
• December - Winter Holiday Traditions and Christmas Stories, Human Rights Day
• January - International Skeptics Day, National Dragon Day
• February - Freedom to Read, French Canadian Winter Carnival, Young Authors Conference, Oscar Night,
• March - Dr Suess’ Birthday, PI Day, International Women’s Day
• April - Poetry Month, Shakespeare’s Birthday, Earth Day
• May - Reading without borders, explore transmedia (Star Wars -May the 4th Be With You…)
• June - Aboriginal Day

Share with us what other great ideas your school is doing to promote literacy during Read In Week and all year long and tweet about it using the hashtag #eipsreads.

Thanks to Shawna Jenkins who co-wrote this post with me!