Battle of the Books

I have to credit two colleagues for showing me the value in podcasts. Firstly, Steve, our Information Technology teacher and my "office" mate (you have to see this combination of library workspace/home to 40 laptops/computer repair/circulation desk/weekly school newsletter publication hub to understand the need for quotations) steered me toward CBC's Canada Reads contest. I mean really, I call myself a Teacher-Librarian and I have hardly paid any attention to this annual battle of the books! Well, that's about to change. For those readers who may not be as tuned in to Canadiana as we all should be, this year's theme is non-fiction:

"We want stories. Books that are page-turners with captivating narratives, memorable characters and vivid prose. Books so riveting you forget they are non-fiction. Books that introduce readers to a brand new world and bring them wholly into it. While we love the work that Canadian essayists, academics, chefs, decorators and self-help gurus do, those books aren't quite right. We want the final five to have stories that captivate the country.

They also have to be in English, in print and Canadian"(CBC Radio-Canada, 2011, para 7).

The conversation then included Pam, one of our senior English teachers (faithful reader of this blog and Canadian author expert), and within minutes a promising unit took shape.

• The Grade 11s will be introduced to the Canada Reads contest and learn of past finalists and winners here.
• The Grade 11s will gather on November 23rd to hear the live reveal of the Top 5 titles and the celebrity panel.
• In some format, to be determined, the Grade 11s will read at least one of the five titles.
• They will listen to previous Canada Reads events found in the archives from 2002-2008, 2009, and 2010. (Finding these archived podcasts required quite the journey through the CBC website!)
• They will choose a book from the Top 5 titles that they want to defend as the non-fiction book that Canada must read. 
• Each student will prepare a passionate speech defending their chosen title, to be recorded as a podcast and shared publicly on the Internet.

I will put my new skills to the test in guiding the Grade 11 students through the podcasting experience. I will advise the students to use Garage Band to create their podcasts, as we have MacBooks available at school. I will explain to them how they can then upload their podcast to iTunes, as many of them have an account. From iTunes, they can upload their podcast to Podomatic, the free site I used to host my first podcast. From Podomatic, they can share their podcast by emailing a link or capturing the embed code to place it somewhere yet to be established.

I am really excited about sharing the podcasting experience with the Grade 11 students. I hope to encourage them to subscribe to a few RSS feeds for podcasts I will recommend in our podcasting workshops. I am impressed with the introduction to podcasts provided in iTunes. I have already set myself up with subscriptions to "Q" with Jian Ghomeshi and I am downloading TED Talks like crazy. My favourite to date has to be "Learning From a Barefoot Movement" by Bunker Roy.

Perhaps some of these students will join me for a piece of humble pie?

References
CBC Radio-Canada. (2011, September 27). Introducing Canada Reads: True Stories [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/2011/09/introducing-canada-reads-true-stories.html