As we begin our second year, we have spent time reflecting and setting goals. We are extremely proud of our accomplishments in this first year, but we hope to grow even more over this next year. Here are some of our plans:
1. Review more professional books and middle grade novels
We did a survey a couple of months ago asking what our readers would like to see more of, and both professional texts and middle grade were at the top of the list. We take your feedback seriously, and we will work on this over the next year.
2. More teaching posts
We also learned from the survey that our teacher reflection posts are appreciated by our viewers. We plan to post more of these in the future.
3. Update About Us
Our lives have changed tremendously over the last year, so we definitely need to get into our “About Us” page and update the information.
4. Update and add to our “Navigating Literary Elements” page
We have recommendations for setting, characterization, and language under our literary elements page, but have plans to add conflict, voice, and imagery. Based on the books we read this year, we will adjust a few of our recommendations to keep the titles new and fresh!
5. Best For…. List
We are often asked about the BEST books for each grade level, so want to compile grade-specific lists to help teachers build and adjust their curricula.
Cheers to a new year!
and
Reflection is as important as the doing. Your new goals are something to look forward to, Ricki and Kellee. It’ll be another great year!
Thank you, Linda! We have enjoyed reflecting this week. Thanks for joining us each day.
Love that saying Linda!
I think goal setting is always great – and I’ve found sharing it is the best way to keep myself accountable.
Could you address how reading (levels) breakdown? For instance, middle grade – how is that defined? Is it set or does it vary? In my mind, I think grade 4 to grade 8 and then Young Adult starts at grade 9 — but how accurate is that? Looking forward to all you’ll share this coming year!
Hi, Cassie!
This is a great question! I believe that traditionally, middle grade novels are directed to ages 8-12, and young adult novels are directed to ages 12-18. However, these are strict borders and most books transcend these. For example, WONDER by R.J. Palacio is about a boy entering 5th grade, but I have heard it being used in high school classrooms. Some young adult novels are marketed to college-aged youth. So really, strict age limits do not exist. As we all know, adults appreciate YAL just as much as adolescents, it seems.
We’ve been asked by some viewers to look a bit closer at books that are marketed to middle schoolers, so we intend to read more of these books in our second year. We focused many of our reviews on young adult titles and children’s literature in our first year because we both have little ones.
I hope this helps!
Thank you for the insight and clarification! I can’t imagine letting my 13 year old read some of the YA stuff out there…
And I like the whole range of books from children’s to YA/NA
And all of it is subjective 🙂
Those are great goals! I should sit down and think about what I want for myself…. nah, I’m just going to read 🙂