Radical Readers! Genre Geniuses! Word Warriors! Would these be the words you would use to describe the readers and writers in your classroom? If not then it’s time to spice up your curriculum with lessons that will inspire your students and add some “zest” to your day.

Reading Ideas
O.T.T.E.R.	Radical Readers
Read-In	Reading Genre

Writing Ideas
Narrative Hamburger	“How-To” Write Up a Storm
Persuade Them With OREO COOKIES!

Reading Ideas

O.T.T.E.R.

Our Time To Enjoy Reading. You know it by a variety of names, Sustained Silent Reading (S.S.R.), Drop Everything and Read (D.E.A.R.), to name a few. To most kids, they all mean the same thing – “I have to read?” Our goal as educators is to make reading fun… to instill a love of books into as many children as possible while they are in our care. O.T.T.E.R. is one way to get them started. One, it’s something to do when they’ve finished everything else. Two, it helps to meet the requirements for their Reading Genre for the year (see below). Three, with a little luck, it will actually help build a love for books and the desire to read.

First, find the cutest stuffed otter you can buy and take it to school. Set it somewhere very visible in the classroom and leave it there for a few days without saying anything. Meanwhile, introduce to the class that they will now be required to have a book at their seats at all times. Instruct them that they are to read this book when they finish their work or are waiting for the next lesson to begin. Give it a day or two with a few gentle reminders and then, one day, the first child to actually start reading on his own, go get the otter and let them hold it while reading. Wait for the hands to fly up! Now’s your chance to introduce O.T.T.E.R.. Explain that everyone will have the chance to hold the otter if they can be responsible enough to read without being told on a consistent basis.

Use the otter to signal to the class that it’s time to begin their silent reading time each day by taking her out of her bed and placing her on top of a visible location in the classroom, such as the television, overhead, back of your favorite read-aloud chair, or current read-aloud book. Once everyone is reading, give her to someone to snuggle. Try drawing Popsicle sticks out of a cup with your student’s names on them. Don’t put them back in until everyone has had a chance to hold the otter.

RADICAL READERS

We all know we can’t do it alone. It takes parents too to help kids learn. One way to involve the parents in helping their child to love reading is to start the Radical Reader program. Each month, send home a new calendar for each student to log in the minutes that they have read, the title of the book and the author. Parents then initial each day read, or for older classes each month, and the calendar is returned at the end of the month. The minimum requirements for Radical Readers are twenty minutes a night, four nights a week. Students can choose to read anything they wish… the goal is to help them enjoy reading. (See Radical Reader form.)

READ – IN

As a reward for completing all of the required minutes of reading to become a Radical Reader, hold a Read-In at the end of each semester. Invite students who have met the requirement to be a Radical Reader to bring a sleeping bag, pillow, stuffed animal and a stack of books to school on a specified day. Don’t forget to remind them to wear their pajamas! Invite several Guest Readers to come in and read aloud their favorite picture book. Spend the entire day celebrating their love of books! Send home a letter a few weeks in advance notifying the parents of the event and include the invitation for Guest Readers. Set up a schedule of small interest groups, American Girl, Harry Potter, etc., and play soft music in the background. Set down the rules…there is only one – read all day! Be sure to have some extra bathrobes on hand for visitors to wear as they enter the room.

There needs to be a penalty for those students who choose not to complete the required minutes. Have students do bookwork at their desk or make up lost time in another location as a good consequence when they are only missing a small amount of time. If they are missing one entire month, have them sit out for at least one hour. More than one month deserves a more severe consequence, even if it means missing the entire Read-In. Remember, this is supposed to be fun – and to have the fun, you have to do the work first!

READING GENRE

Turn your class into Genre Geniuses and expand their reading repertoire all at the same time! Many times students will read because they enjoy it, but they get stuck on one type of genre and that is the only one they explore. Students have to be encouraged and introduced to new genres to expand their exposure to literature. Double the pleasure, double the learning by having students read one book (125 pages or longer) from each of 12 Literature Genre by the end of the school year (see Reading Genre Log). To help encourage organizational skill development, the student must read from three different genres each nine weeks. For example, Katie #32 might read one novel from Historical Fiction, one from Mystery, and one from Folktales during the first nine weeks. In the second nine weeks, Katie #32 might read a book of Short Stories, our class Poetry book, Kaleidoscope, and a Science Fiction thriller. This avoids the end of the year rush to "catch-up" on genres not yet read.

Additionally, the students must complete a book evaluation sheet for each of the genre books read (see You Be the Judge). This sheet is completed in class and is filed in a three-ring binder so other students can refer to it when looking for a particular genre title.

Extend the accountability by having students complete a “report” about the book. No ordinary book reports allowed here! Presentations must be creative and original. (Let students know that reading for their Genre requirements also counts for their Radical Readers minutes each night that they read at home.)

CROWN	Introduction	Hook the reader with a sentence that grabs their attention.
LETTUCE	Setting	Where does your story take place?
TOMATO	Time	When does your story take place?
PICKLES	Main Characters	Who is your story about?
CONDIMENT	Problem	This is the conflict or event that makes the reader want to continue reading.
CHEESE	Effect	How does the problem affect the characters? What complications and emotions do they experience?
MEAT	Solution	How is the problem answered? What is the result of the event?
HEEL	Conclusion	End the story by explaining what was learned or how the character’s life was changed.

	PERSUADE THEM WITH OREO COOKIES!

What does an OREO cookie have to do with expository writing? LOTS! Use this yummy cookie to teach your kids an expository formula that they will never forget.

Place a cookie in front of each child, with the OREO logo facing them, and then ask, “What does an OREO cookie have to do with a persuasive paper?” This will most certainly kick off a lot of discussion and answers such as, “We have to persuade you to let us eat the cookie!” Tell them that they may be right but the real reason has to do with how the cookie is made. Lead them through a discussion of the parts of a persuasive paper, “discovering” the meaning of each of the letters in OREO as you go.

O	Opinion	State your opinion about your topic. Be sure to include a hook to draw your reader in!
R	Reasons	Give at least three reasons that support your opinion.
E	Elaboration	Give at least three details or points of elaboration to support each of your reasons.
O	Opinion Restated	Restate the opinion you gave in the beginning of your paper.

Have your students create construction paper OREO cookie books to use for planning their persuasive papers. Cut a large circle, on the fold, from black construction paper. Cut two smaller circles, also on the fold, from white construction paper. Using a book stapler, staple the white pages into the black cover to create a cookie book. Let them decorate the outside like their real OREO cookie. When students can recite what the letters OREO stand for, let them eat their cookie. It’s a great incentive to learn the acronym for the persuasive formula.

	“HOW-TO” WRITE UP A STORM

If you’ve ever watched that famous Louisiana chef on television (the one with all the "BAM!"), then you have all the background you need to teach kids about writing a detailed how-to paper. But don’t worry, you don’t have to be a master chef, or for that matter even have to know how to cook, to pull this off.

You’ll need a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jelly, a knife, an apron and a little bit of imagination to make this lesson work. First, you become a famous television chef and your students become the audience at the latest taping of your show. Next, choose a volunteer from the audience, making sure that they are an expert in the art of making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Ask them to face the back wall and give you the directions to make a sandwich, one step at a time.

This is where the fun begins! You pull an “Amelia Bedelia” and do EXACTLY what they say. The results are sure to be hilarious. After presenting your guest expert with their sandwich, ask for another volunteer, emphasizing the need for a real PB &J expert. Continue making sandwiches until you have one that is reasonably close to the real thing. It usually takes about three volunteers before someone gets pretty close. At the conclusion of your show, conduct a review of the importance of sequence of events and the need for elaborate details. Send your guests off to write a how-to using their own favorite food.

RADICAL READERS

READ – IN

READING GENRE

Narrative Hamburger