Goodreads

 

It can be difficult to foster a love of reading in students, however, the website Goodreads could help to change that. Goodreads is basically social media for books. There are many things that students can do on the website.

When you first make an account, you create “bookshelves”. You create a “read” shelf with all the books you’ve ever read. Then you create a “want to read” shelf with books you want to read in the future and lastly you can add books that you are currently reading to a “currently reading” shelf. You can also rate the books and leave your thoughts on it in a review. This data helps the site to give you book recommendations.

So, after setting up the account, students can “friend” each other and see each other’s bookshelves. They can also send each other book recommendations. Students often don’t know what to read, so they can help each other. They can also find classmates that have similar tastes with them. I think that kids are more likely to listen to each other than anyone. I don’t think a recommendation from a teacher would go as far as one from a peer. Students can also comment and “like” each other’s status updates.

The status updates on the site are a really cool feature because it basically functions like a reading log. Students can add a book as “currently reading” and then update their progress over time with their thoughts. 

 

Additionally, teachers can create a private classroom group on the website where they can add the books the class is reading and create discussion threads. Teachers can also have the students write and post a book review on a classroom book for an assignment.

Overall, I think that Goodreads would be a great resource for English teachers. I’ve been using it since I was 12 and I know that the second I joined I started reading double what I read before. However, I never thought about how it could be used in a classroom before until I found it as a suggestion on Common Sense Education. It’s a great way to get kids excited about reading books because it integrates reading with something that they already love, social media.