Today we met in the Media Center to pick out novels for students to read for our next unit, “Writing Wikipedia.” As students came in, they picked up the weekly syllabus as well as the unit calendar, which you can download here: Writing Wikipedia Calendar 2011.
1. Intro to Project. Students will be reading YA books and then updating the Wikipedia articles on those books. It will be magnificent! Skeptical? Here, read this whole published article I wrote on it, complete with developmentally appropriate rationale: Writing Wikipedia Articles in the Constructivist Classroom.
2. Book selection. All students must select a novel with a young adult protagonist. If you were not here today, you should get a book from the library or your home by tomorrow. You may work in a group of 2, 3, or 4 people. Or you may work alone.
3. Reading due dates. All students received a Bookmark to write down their reading due dates on. Groups or individuals determined how many pages to read for each of the six meeting dates. These due dates should be filled out by tomorrow. The first set of chapters/pages is due on Thursday.
4. Wikipedia video. We watched a video introducing Wikipedia: Click here
5. Reading. We began reading our books after the video.
HW: Reading #1 (1/6 of the novel) due Thursday
ALEXA GARVOILLE 