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In my 7th grade Reading class, each student is required to read an independent novel (or two) each quarter. Although they get some class time to accomplish this, most of the reading is done outside of class. Over the last couple of weeks, students have been recording and posting short podcasts about the books they are reading.

For the most recent podcast, I gave them the option of imagining they were recording a commercial for their book, after it was turned into a movie. They could also bypass the podcast all together, and instead write a book report on their weblogs. A few students opted to do this. It’s nice have as many options as possible when asking them to respond to the books they are reading.

You can listen to all the podcasts on our class homepage. The students also embedded their podcasts into their blogs and wrote reflections about the whole process. Check out Binyam’s excellent post outlining all the steps involved in making a podcast. Binyam choose to read the Hobbit for his independent reading novel.

I hope to continue podcasting with students throughout the year, so stay tuned for more. The podcast used at the top of this post was recorded by Johana.