Epic Genre Sort

One of my goals this year is to create a culture where reading is prolific. In order to kick that mood off, I wanted the students to explore the classroom library. I thought about passing books around in a circle, or doing some book talks, but I decided to go big and make it memorable.

BAM!!

I had the students go up one at a time and grab 5 books off the shelf to spread out on the floor. We pushed the desks back to make more room and made sure to keep a path around the perimeter so we didn’t step on any.

After they were all out on the floor, we discussed genres. They told me what genres they could see on the floor, defined them, and held up an example from the pile. Here’s our rough draft, all in their language. Next, I’m going to show them some definitions from other sources and have them rewrite our definitions so that they are more precise.

When I asked them to raise their hand if they had their eye on a book that they wanted to read from the mess on the floor, they enthusiastically raised their hands. #missionaccomplished

We started by pulling out some of the more specialized  genres like graphic novels and biographies. We pulled out non-fiction titles as well.

Some of the kids were starting to stress out about the mess, so it was time to put them back. I put a sticky note on each table with a letter of the alphabet and asked each kid to pick up 3 books from the floor and put them on the correct table (Alphabetical by author’s last name).

Finally, they put them back on the shelf with the sticky note label (for now).

It’s a work in progress, but the students led it, worked together, and have a great sense of ownership over our library.

We all breathed a sigh of relief when we had a clear space on the carpet again. I’m doing this every year from now on. It was quite a leap to let go of my own system of labeling and organizing, but it felt so right!