The SWMS 20 Book Challenge

The #swms20bookchallenge has taken off and spread across the country which is pretty freaking exciting. I've presented several times at conferences and Professional Development days and it has spread across our district and even our state. Recently I began getting emails or direct messages on social media asking me questions about it from all over the country. It's a great program but it is so hard to explain in a brief way, especially in 140 characters or less.

So here ya go...the basics.

How We Started:
We needed something that would really, truly get our students to read. SO VERY MANY of our students come to us significantly below grade level in reading or they've just lost their love for books. Let me be clear, not all of our students meet this description. We had some students who are high-flyers and tons of kids who have always liked to read but we have a large number of students who really struggle. I was a brand new Media Specialist and our Literacy Coach at the time was also brand new to her position. Our school doesn't have Reading Counts or AR. Our school had tried some school-wide reads of a single book but that just wasn't really working anymore. One of the greatest reading teachers of all time, Diamelia Christie, came to me and said she'd been reading Donalyn Miller's books and wanted to do a 20 Book Challenge with her students. She asked me if I could help her with it and help them find books that fit in those categories. After looking at it and talking about it with our Reading Coach and English Department Head, we decided to try and make that our school-wide read for the year instead of just doing one book for the masses.

We took it to our administration and they told us we could try it but they seemed a little skeptical. We took the categories of the books and we ran with it. Within two or three weeks we had it ready to roll out to the whole school. We wanted some accountability so we built a Google Classroom and had a Google Form for each category. The students had to log in and "log" their book by completing the form with a short response question that would tell us if they read the book or not. Once the students logged their book, we read their response and either gave them credit or asked them to resubmit their response. Let me just add, that our ELA Department Head, Katy McGregor, is the Queen of all things Google and she totally rocks my socks off. She makes my life SO much easier. She builds all of our Google stuff and makes us all look smart. 😜

Our Reading Coach at the time, Brandy Griswell, is a rock star of epic proportions (who has since been promoted to an Assistant Principal of Curriculum at another school) and she called ALL the local businesses and got donations for us to give away as prizes. Once a month we'd go into the cafeteria and draw names. The more books logged, the more times your name was in the drawing. We gave away prizes like gift cards to the local Chick-fil-a or the local ice cream joint. The kids really started getting into it. Prizes are not something Donalyn Miller would go for but it works for us. It started out as an incentive and helped motivate the kids to get started.

In December, she started pulling their data and showing it to the team teachers and they were blown away. The students who were actively participating in our challenge had HUGE reading gains in just 3 months. Once they saw the data, the rest of our staff got on board and our admin team really became believers and started promoting the program as hard as they could.

We themed everything around the challenge so it was literally school-wide. I tagged the books on the shelves for which categories they could count as, set up book displays for some categories, and even tagged all the books in the book fair. We made Florida Literacy Week into The 20 Book Challenge Literacy Week. We printed posters and banners and hung our propaganda all over the school.

Results:
We ended up having a ton of books logged (2,828 to be exact) and had 25 students who finished the challenge. We built them swag bags with prizes and new books and then they all got to go to a local restaurant and have lunch with our principal and get to order whatever they wanted on the menu. I'm going to be really honest. We thought the prize was super lame but we couldn't afford anything else. I was blown away by how much the kids loved it and how excited they were to be able to pick whatever they wanted on the menu. We kept them out of class all day and then pulled all the kids who had logged 10 books or more into the cafeteria for a giant ice cream sundae party. They had a great time!

Changes for Year 2:
In the first year, our principal was very clear that the reading should be done outside of the classroom. He didn't want instructional time to be missed. Now, I could spend a solid 4 hours writing about the value of independent reading and discussion in the classroom and how it would meet all the standards and then some but that is another post for another day. We took what we could get in year one. In year two, the students were allowed to read during class for independent reading or as the assignment for when they had finished their work. The students were also given opportunities to log their books during warm up activities during class.

We changed our categories to be more flexible and meet the needs of our students. We found that many of the students who didn't finish the first year, didn't stop reading, they stopped logging because they found books they loved that didn't fit into the categories. We wanted to still challenge the kids but we also wanted to allow them the choice they so desperately crave. We wanted them to read what they love and be able to squeeze it into the challenge.

We worked to adjust the prompts to more closely mirror what they'd see on state tests but still feel like they are just talking about a good book. We wanted the skills tested to shine through with a text they enjoyed. Now let me be clear, we aren't trying to drill the kids to death. We use these prompts and logging their books as a conversation between them and us about the book they read. It isn't a grade or an essay or a test. The students write about the characters, the things that surprised them what they loved or didn't love. We prompt them to think and then respond and then we respond back to them.

We changed our feedback method and started using Google Classroom's grading feature to send individualized feedback to each student and really help them see what they were missing from their responses. With increased participation also came the need for additional grading so both of us (Literacy Coach & Media Specialist) took on that role.

We also added to our list of literacy-based events including Banned Book Week, Book Fair, March Madness Book Tournament, Book Bash, Book Launch Party, etc. and really worked to increase the hype.

We didn't give out any prizes throughout the year. We just had a HUGE celebration day.

Results:
We thought we had huge results for year one but they were just a drop in the bucket compared to our year two. We had the same numbers in December  (year two) as we had at the year's end of year one. We had 38 students finish and 12 teachers too. We scored over 10,000 responses and broke Google Classroom. 82% of our ENTIRE school willingly and actively participated in our challenge. Our students had books with them all the time and not just the ones you'd expect. I could share countless stories of students who had never seen success with reading that finished our challenge this year including students who struggled with English as their second language.

Our celebration day included jump time at a local trampoline park, a catered author lunch with Christina Diaz Gonzalez, an author session with her for all the students who logged 11 books or more, each finisher got an amazing t-shirt and they got a brand new book of their choice.

Changes for Year 3: 
Coming off of year two, the students are excited and so is the staff. We needed to solve some of the issues we found during year two so this year are going from one massive Google Classroom with the whole school in it to two Google Classrooms, one per grade. Katy is a genius and decided we should make one Google Form with 20 sections instead of 20 different Google Forms. This will help us cut down on students logging the same book for more than one category (be it on accident or on purpose). It will also help the students see which books/categories they have credit for and makes the whole process more streamlined for us and the students. We also have new categories that I'm SO excited about. We tie our Sunshine State Young Readers Award (SSYRA) books into the categories and our students can use our Project Lit books for this as well.  My favorite categories for this year are probably A Book Written in Verse, A Diverse Book--meaning a book about someone who is very different than themselves, and A Book You've Previously Abandoned. We are working to push the kids from thinking of reading as school work and seeing it as something they want to do and discuss.

We really love this program and what it does for students. We love the choice the kids have and how it has pushed them so far outside of their comfort zones. When one program can get so many students who come to us below grade level to be excited about the amazing books that are out there, you know you have something magical on your hands. 

This program can be adapted for a single classroom, a grade level, or for your particular school. It is being implemented in about 12 other schools in our district, several across our state, and a few in other states as well. If you aren't ready to start your own challenge but want to join us, please do! Just tweet out your books with our hashtag and tag me on Twitter. We'd love to see it! Currently NYT Best-Selling Author Tiffany Jackson is participating with us because she wants one of our shirts. 

Please feel free to contact me with questions about our program, how it works, or really just anything else. Also, make sure you follow our #swms20bookchallenge hashtag to keep up with all the great things that are happening.