Summertime and the Reading Is Easy…

Summer Book Club for Our Staff…A Follow-Up Post

Last month I blogged about furthering a culture of reading at my school through a summer book club for our staff. My wonderful instructional technology facilitator, Katherine Leatherman, and I planned a professional development session to introduce the summer book club idea. Our final Drop-In PD was a sample book tasting for the teachers. 

Highland’s last Drop-In PD is in the books (no pun intended), and the book tasting was a hit. We used a simple Google form and our teachers voted for their top pick for the summer read, selecting Kimmery Martin’s The Queen of Hearts. Her debut novel is set in Charlotte, North Carolina, about thirty minutes from our town. So, we would love to share this summer reading opportunity with YOU!  Follow along with us this summer as we read this novel, conduct slow chats on Twitter, and just have fun sharing a great book!

How to participate:

  1. Get a copy of the book to read from your library or your favorite bookstore.
  2. Make sure you have a Twitter account so you can join our weekly slow chats.
  3. Follow along with #HSTreads.
  4. Read and enjoy the book following the schedule below.
  5. Optional: Sign up for Remind App notices (see the image below).
  6. Tweet each week at your leisure!
Highland's Summer Reading Schedule

Read along with us in NC using this chapter schedule.

We are using the Remind App to share scheduled weekly reminders to our staff members who sign up. Send a text following the format below to join Remind:

 

Text this code to 81010 to get our weekly reminders.

Katherine and I have planned out our reminders in advance and scheduled them to post in the Remind App. This is a great way to keep in touch with the staff over the summer. Teachers and coaches at our school have found the Remind App useful too! You may want to give it a try for your own book club.

To kick-off our staff book club, this first Tweet is scheduled to post on Sunday, June 9. It will be a fun way to see where our staff readers are and how they are starting their summer vacations. I love to Tweet with #LibrarianOnLocation too! If you decide to read with us, make sure you tag our author Kimmery Martin, too!

Thank you to amazon.com for the cover image used in this blog post.

 

As the summer season begins, I wish you all a wonderful time of rest, relaxation, and READING. Katherine and I hope you will read along with us too. Feel free to reach out to us with any questions. Katherine’s Twitter handle is @kaleathe615 and mine is @laurablong.

Author: Laura Long

Laura Long is the school library media specialist at Highland School of Technology in Gastonia, NC, a 2017 National Blue Ribbon School. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Education from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and her Masters of Library Science from East Carolina University. She is a Gaston County Schools’ Delta Fellow, Pinnacle Technology Leader and member of the Pioneering Educators Team, as well as a National Board certified language arts teacher. Additionally, she is the President of the North Carolina School Library Media Association. She loves collaborating and helping her students connect with others around the world, so feel free to contact her via email or social media.



Categories: Blog Topics, Community/Teacher Collaboration, Professional Development, Technology

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