End of the Year Top-Ten Lists

We’ve all done it! Curating and titling lists or folders in our spare time for the things we want to learn or read. Having a curated and updated YouTube Playlist or music playlist is common everyday activity for all of us.

Harnessing the power of the way we interact with, create, and consume content is something we can embrace in our classrooms and it doesn’t always involve a social media platform or an app.

Students can sharpen their skills as readers and continue to develop their reading identity by creating and curating lists too. The final days of the school year can be the perfect time for this engaging activity.

Get started:

1. Have students decide on a title for their list (Top-Ten_____Beach Reads, Rainy Day Reads, Road Trip Reads etc.).

2. Curate a list of titles that fit the list.

3. Share

Take it Digital:

There are too many possibilities to take it digital! Use Google docs or Slides to curate, take it to Padlet or keep it analog, it honestly doesn’t matter. The real work is in the curation of the list itself.

My colleagues and I are noticing such benefits as:

Trustworthy Authority

Students have to have the knowledge of the books they are curating for their list. Furthermore, they are curating as a sort of ‘leading authority’ on the subject of something like; Top Ten Beach Reads for 2019. I go to the beach, I read, therefore, I am a trustworthy authority on the matter.

Revisionists Playlist

When students create and curate a Top-ten list, they are adding books or resources for what they know at this point. With any playlist, music or books, we always need to think with a revisionists mindset. Students will understand at the outset that their curated lists may change and they will in fact update and revise their content too.

Public Sharing

When students prepare for public performance or sharing, there is always a heightened sense of engagement and curiosity. Students want to push out a list that might benefit another reader like them or they want their list to be the list that others take with them to Barnes and Noble. Sharing our Top-Ten lists helps others have a resource.

Recently, I engaged in a conversation with a colleague about my reading identity and told her that I wish someone had just put words around the type of reader I was and still am. To that end, I am a self-development or self-improvement reader. This doesn’t mean that I am not reading in other areas, it just means that if I had to curate a list of self-development books that have impacted me personally over the last year, I could gather that pretty quickly. In fact, check out the sample below. This is the document that I used in a recent PD with teachers.

You can check out a more detailed explanation on my YouTube Channel below.

If you try this with your students or like the ideas here and you improve upon these ideas, please share a thought with me below in the comments.