Shelfari

Shelfari is, in a word, a social networking site for book lovers. So if you're a book lover, you're going to ADORE this website. And even if you have students who aren't book lovers, this website might make reading (and the reports that inevitably follow) more bearable.

You sign up for an account using your Amazon username and password (or you can create one, if need be). From there, you build you profile just like you would for any other social networking site. The basis of this site is, obviously, books. So you built your virtual bookshelf to include books you've read, books you own, books you've loaned out, books you WANT to read...the list can go on and on.

I've created a profile on Shelfari and created a group specifically for my English students. I created it, so I created the welcome message that greets members of the group. (The welcome message basically just tells the students the expectations of the assignment.)

I'm going to use this website as a substitute for oral book reports. Currently, I ask my students to read 400 pages per semester (so they get about a month to read 100 pages) and report to me over each book they read. They can read anything they like, so long as it's on their reading level and doesn't double as a motion picture. When they're done, students must bring the book to me and just give me a summary of the pages they read. If I am skeptical of the student's truthfulness, I flip through the pages of the book and ask a few simple questions. If I believe the student read the pages, I give him/her the credit for the book.

There are some flaws to this process, though. For one, kids can lie pretty well if they want to. ;) For another, I'm not requiring my students to do any higher-level thinking skills. They don't have to do anything beyond simple recall, and anybody can do that! So the criteria I've set up for my English group (http://www.shelfari.com/groups/79058/about) is more in-depth: it asks the students to answer several questions about the novel. (Check out the link to the English group to see all the questions I'm asking of my students.) This not only reinforces typing skills and knowledge about literary devices and elements, but it also makes it less likely for a student to fake their way through this assignment (I think/hope).

I'm really looking forward to using this in the classroom! I think it will be a great on-going project for my students. Yay, Shelfari!