Summer Book Chat by Briana Cotten

Yesterday, September 23rd, 2016 the high school ran on an activities day schedule. Each student had been previously given the assignment to pick one book, out of a total of 33 options and read that said book over the course of the summer. One did not have to take notes- the point of the task was for the student to enjoy their book and then be able to have a discussion on it when they returned to school. The book chat was an hour long and I took an anonymous survey on the number of students whom thought it was beneficial vs the ones who didn't quite enjoy it as much. The results are shown below~

*Out of 20 students a total of 14 students said they really enjoyed their book and book chat immensely while the other 6 claimed that their book discussions were to a minimum, thus it wasn't as enjoyable*

Jamie Rennie stated, "I loved the book chat for Me Before You because I really enjoyed reading the book and I thought it was a good way to look at the story from other people's perspectives. I liked how it was run by an English teacher because it made the chat flow nicely, and I really enjoyed talking about a book that people actually chose to read rather than were forced to." 

Overall I really enjoyed this book chat myself and believe each teacher did an amazing job to make this not only a fun time, but a good learning experience.  

Why do we explore? By Phil Christodoulou

Today in our book chat we spoke about why people explore anything in this world, or even beyond.
Is it for the curiosity, the riches, or the excitement? These are just a few examples that we went over but everyone explores for their own particular reason. There is no right or wrong answer as to why someone explores. In The book Lost City of Z (Which was our summer book) was about how a man name Fawcett, explores the Amazon while knowing the risks for himself, crew and family, yet something inside him drives him to keep going and searching. Personally half the things I explore i have no clue what I'm looking for, but that, is the best part about it, you never know what might come your way.