What is Goodreads?

Goodreads is the largest social network for readers in the world. It is a place were you can keep track of books, read and write reviews, chat with others about books and much more. You can find a link to the Goodreads site in the right sidebar as well as a link to my personal Goodreads site.

Making Use of Goodreads with Students

I would like to use Goodreads with students to make them feel more involved in the reading assignments and hopefully it will encourage them to become more avid readers. I feel that this site can get older children excited about reading, because it is sort of like a Facebook for readers. They can comment with other people about books and even create quizzes and challenge friends to try them. There are many things that you can get the students to do as a teacher, like have them complete activities with the quotes they find or create and have them compose quizzes to show how well they know the book. This is a great site and in the following blogs I will describe some ways that it can be utilized in the classroom.

Make a Plan and Stay Organized

I great feature about Goodreads is that it can help students plan their reading and keep it all organized. You can give them a list of books that will be read within the year or semester and they can update them all into their account. They can also put the books in three separate categories: read, currently reading, and to-read. They can even record the date they started and finished the book and they can post their review of the books and rate them. This is a fun way for students to keep track of their reading. You can type in a book that you are interested in and peoples reviews and summaries will show so you can see if it is anything you would want to read. This can help students find a book that they will stick with and read all the way through.

Creative Writing

There is a feature on Goodreads where students can create their own writing and publish it for others to view. This can be used in several ways. For example if the students have a poetry assignment have them put their final product on Goodreads. If there are any writing assignments that they are really proud of have them put it on their site. For those students that are very creative writers encourage them to post some of their personal writings to share with the class. It may build their confidence to see their friends commenting on their work. You can even make a special project just for Goodreads. This would be a great place to post any book reports that they do on books that are on their site. There are endless ways to use this section of Goodreads.

Creativity with Quotes

There is a quote featured on Goodreads where you can search for quotes from the book your reading or create your own if you can not find the one you are looking for. There are also quotes from famous people, authors and so on. I have a list of activities that could use the aid of this site.

Quote Booklet: The students can make a booklet full of quotes that they have collected. You can make this a project that goes on all year and that covers all the books read in class as well as personal books. The students can be as creative as they want with this booklet. They can use a store bought journal, make it themselves, use an electronic source... With the aid of Goodreads they can easily search for quotes and they can save them on their goodreads site so they can share them with others.

Quote Poem: This is a fun activity were you have the students compose a poem from several of their quotes on their Goodreads account. They can be as creative as they want and can use any poetry form.

Quote Art: Have the students pick their favorite quote from their Goodreads site and have them create a picture that represents the essence of the quote. They can draw a picture, create a collage...

Book inspired quote: Have the students find I quote that they like that is not from a book. It can be a famous quote, a quote from and author or just a random quote they love. With this quote they have to find a book that has the same theme as the quote. By doing this they will hopefully find a book that they enjoy because it shares the same qualities of that favorite quote.

Create Quizzes

You, the teacher, as well as the students can create quizzes. There are pre-made quizzes that you can check out or you can make your own multiple choice quiz and publish it for the students to take. I believe that the best use for this feature is to have the students create quizzes. They can create the quizzes so that you can check for their understanding and knowledge of the book and they can create them to challenge their friends. Students may find it more interesting and exciting if they get to take quizzes made by friends each instead of always the teacher. The students can also use the pre-made quizzes to test their own knowledge and prepare for class discussions.