Blog Book Study Coming Soon!

If you have visited my blog before, you have probably seen the many posts that I made when I participated in a blog book study over the summer with The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo. I was even linked by Jennifer Serravallo on her website, where people who go to her website can now link/hop over to my blog and read my reflections of her book. I loved every moment of being a part of that study- so much that I wanted to begin my own within my fantastic school district. That brings us to right now.

On Monday, November 9, I will post the kickoff reflection of the Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller blog book study. All the members of this book study are fellow colleagues in Berwyn South School District 100- a town right outside of Chicago, Il. There are 10 total participants and we will all be reading and reflecting on one chapter or vignette from Donalyn Miller's book Reading in the Wild.      

If you've never been part of a blog book study before (whether a participant or audience member), it's really quite simple. Here's what I did to prepare: 

1. I decided on what book to focus the study on- in this case, Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller. I had been wanting to read this book ever since it came out- mostly because of my absolute adoration of her first book, The Book Whisperer. 
2. I looked through the book and determined how many "blog posts" there would need to be. In this case, I found 11 individual sections- some short vignettes, some long chapters- that I would need to assign to participants.
3. Next, I needed to find participants. Since I work in a school district of 8 schools- sending an email out to the whole entire district seemed a bit much for only 11  reflections, so I sent out an email to the identified group of reading teachers.  From this, including myself, I got 10 participants. Because I was ultimately one participant short, I decided that I would do the first and last reflections, just to begin and wrap up the study nicely.
4. I then set up a google doc (which was shared in that invitation email) and anyone who wanted to participate signed up for a section of the book and gave their info about their blog, twitter, etc.
5. **This might be a great time to point out that along the way, I was lucky enough to get help from the amazing Colleen Noffsinger- who hosted, with her #readingstrategiescrew, that Serravallo study I was part of over the summer. I am so grateful that she is in my district and was willing to answer my (sometimes needy and silly) questions along the way.
6. And speaking of Colleen, she is the one who put together the amazing schedule- (see below) which is the next step that needed completing. Once everyone had signed up, given their blog info, and selected a section- it was time to set a start date and make a schedule. 
7. It was decided that, just like the summer study, a new blog post would come out every Monday and Wednesday. With 11 posts, I just wanted to make sure that we could start in enough time to be done before everyone leaves on winter break- a time that is crazy and hectic for everyone!! And no one wants to be worried about remember to get their post done while on vacation!
8. Then you need an awesome friend like Colleen to finalize the schedule and then you begin to promote!! Here's the beautiful schedule: 
   
9. Once the study begins, everyone just posts their blog reflection on their assigned day. At the end of each post, the current blogger "links" to the next blogger (and so on, and so on) until the end of the study. It's also helpful to have a "linky" where people can link up to your blog, as well.
10. Lastly, it's always helpful to have a fun hashtag when promoting on twitter- so thanks to Marilyn McManus, my fabulous principal, she came up with our hashtag: D100bloggerPD
1. This is perfect because now we can use it to tag our posts with this study and also for any future blog studies within my amazing district.

That's all for now! Be sure to check back here on Monday, 11/9 for the first post as part of this amazing book study! And in the meantime, check out the other fabulous bloggers (who you can see in the schedule above) and see their amazing blogs!

*If you want to be sure you don't miss a post from me in the future- check on the upper right side of my blog and you'll see a "bloglovin" button- just click that, subscribe to my blog, and you'll be updated in the future anytime I create a new post! It's the best way to guarantee you won't miss a thing!