40 Book Pledge: Virtual Edition

 Last year was my first year to organize a book club around Donalyn Miller's 40 Book Challenge.  To read all about my adventures last year, see previous blog posts "40 Book Pledge," "Half Way through the 40 Book Pledge, " and "End of the 40 Book Pledge."

Due to the current Coronavirus pandemic we are experiencing, I decided to take the 40 Book Pledge virtual.  The meetings are asynchronous. I decided that many of their actual classes were using the synchronous format already.  So in lieu of face-to-face meetings or video chats, I am posting a discussion once or twice a month on our district chosen platform, Microsoft TEAMs.  I created a 40 Book Pledge class, and invited students and faculty to join using a TEAMs code.  I am planning to post on a Tuesday, and the participants have the rest of that week to respond.  They can participate by responding to my post or by making comments on someone else's posts.  I arranged it this way on purpose because I want the virtual club to be low-key and not stressful.  Plus I want it to be a comfortable space where books can be discussed on their time.

I worked on the transformation of this club from in-person to virtual this past summer.  Here is what I created . . . Bitmoji style. (Just a side note on the whole Bitmoji craze.  I find that the Bitmoji rooms are my happy place.  This is a way for me to unwind and do something creative while I am processing whatever needs to be processed, which - let's face it - was a lot these past 6 months.  I'm pretty sure I don't even care if the students like the Bitmoji thing because I do.  Sometimes you have to do a little something just for you.  Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. 😁)

Back to the topic at hand . . . here is my 40 Book Pledge Bitmoji which has ALL of the information my patrons need to join and participate. 

The books sitting next to me on the couch are my works cited.  Everything on the chalkboard opens to a Google doc explaining that topic.  Then each of the genre stickers opens to a genre room with book recommendations from our actual library. Now that I have purchased 2 new eBook platforms, I will probably change some of the books in these genre rooms to reflect the ones they can find on JLG Stream or Teen Book Cloud.

Let's talk about recruiting.  Last year I introduced the club during my library orientation classes.  This year I was still putting my library back together from the summer renovation.  The library is BEAUTIFUL, but it has taken more time than I care to admit putting everything back together.  So no classes.  Therefore, I sent out the Bitmoji information to the faculty this week, and I will send an additional email next week to our ELAR teachers so they can add the link to their Canvas courses. I am also planning to reach out individually to all the participants from last year. 

I just posted a "Welcome to the Club" discussion where the students/staff will introduce themselves and talk about their favorite books or genres.  Then our first "meeting" will be Sept. 22nd.  We'll see how this goes.

Have a fantastic day, and be safe out there.