Why Use A Reading Log Handout?
[in Classroom Notes Plus. January 2000. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, pp. 4-5.] I use a Reading Log Handout to enhance the ways that my eighth-grade students respond to literature. At the beginning of the year, I distribute a handout sheet containing a numbered list of ideas for reading logs. I tell the students that they need to choose a book that they want to read from the classroom library, the school library, or any other source. Students are responsible for writing a two-page reading log to be handed in every week. Depending upon the reading level of the student, I may or may not make a firm deadline for each book, e.g., four logs (one month) per book. Obviously, these logs are suited to fiction, but they can also be applied to biography, poetry, and some non-fiction. The students can choose freely which type of logs they will write, with one rule: they are only allowed to choose option #7 (drawing a picture) once per book. I’ve received many interesting and
