Lesson video

Hi there, my name is Mr. Charlesworth, and in today's lesson, we're developing our reading preferences through text recommendations.

Specifically today we'll be looking at curation, which is all about selecting or choosing a series of texts to go on a bookshelf.

I hope you're looking forward to the lesson.

Let's get started.

Today's lesson outcome is I can make recommendations to other readers.

The keywords are my turn, your turn, recommendation, reading community, curation.

A recommendation is a suggestion for a text that is well suited to a reader's age and their interests.

A reading community is a group of readers who read, share, and discuss their reading experiences with one another.

Curation refers to selecting and organising literature for specific purpose or audience.

Don't worry if there's any keywords that you're not sure about, we'll be exploring them throughout the lesson.

Today's lesson is all about developing reading preferences through text recommendations.

We're first going to explore why it's important to recommend texts, and then we're gonna have a go at curating our own bookshelf.

I hope you're looking forward to it.

Let's start with why we should make text recommendations.

Text recommendations are an important part of developing reading for pleasure.

A well-matched recommendation can capture a reader's interest and engage them in reading.

They can also encourage readers to explore different themes, cultures, and perspectives, which can help us widen our understanding of the world.

I wonder, have you ever received a text recommendation from a friend, an adult, person who works in a bookshop or a librarian perhaps? One such suggestion that I received recently was "Corey's Rock", an illustrated chapter book.

The person who recommended it to me knew that I'd enjoy a really moving and empathetic narrative.

It was a great choice.

Making a text recommendation is an enjoyable experience.

It allows readers to share common interests and passions, exchange thoughts and opinions about the text, introduce new ideas, perspectives, or knowledge, and create an exchange of recommendations.

As you recommend to other people, they'll hopefully recommend back to you.

Discussing recommended texts with others can create a sense of community and connection among readers.

We can call this a reading community.

Well spotted on all of the keywords.

Building and growing a reading community is a really important part of developing reading for pleasure.

When you're thinking about text to recommend, there are lots of features you could draw out.

Here's one of my recent recommendations, "My Baba's Garden".

You might like to comment on the form.

For example, picture book.

You might make a personal connection to the text.

This beautiful narrative is all about the relationship between a young boy and his grandmother.

It talks about the intergenerational relationship and also celebrates language too.

You might recommend a text because of its author, illustrator, editor or translator.

Another text by this creative team is, "I Talk Like a River".

I'd really recommend you check it out.

You might also recommend a text because it's part of a series or group of texts.

Perhaps they have similar themes or ideas.

You might also recommend a text because of its genre.

This example is realistic fiction or biography as it's based partially on the author's own experience.

In our first check for understanding, I'd like you to think, why is it useful to recommend text to each other? What benefits are there? Pause the video while you note down a few ideas.

Fantastic work.

Let's have a look at a few examples.

Aisha says, "Recommending texts to friends or family can introduce us to new ideas and knowledge." Alex says, "By recommending text to others, I usually get plenty in return." I wonder if their suggestions were similar to yours.

There are many ways to make a text recommendation.

How many can you think of? Pause the video and have a ponder.

Great work.

I wonder if you got the same as me.

You can make a written recommendation on a slip of paper.

You can make a recommendation online on a blog or message board.

You can make a text recommendation verbally, face-to-face, so in-person, or you might like to make a text recommendation visually by designing a poster or perhaps doing an emoji review.

Here's our next check for understanding.

True or false? Text must always be written down.

Is that true or false? Pause the video now whilst you decide.

Great work, it's false.

Text recommendations don't always have to be written down.

Now, I'd like you to justify your answer.

Is it because A, text recommendations can also be made face-to-face or online, or B, text recommendations must be written down to be received.

Pause the video whilst you note down the justification.

Well done, text recommendations can also be made face-to-face or online.

There's lots of ways that you can recommend a text to somebody else.

In this task, you are going to make a text recommendation.

How will you share your recommendation? Step one is to think of a text that you've enjoyed and would recommend to a peer, a teacher, a friend or family member.

Step two is to decide on how you'll share the recommendation.

Will it be written down, shared verbally, so face-to-face, or will it be conveyed visually? Step three is what will you share about the text to encourage them to read it? Remember, a recommendation should be tailored to the audience, the person you're recommending it to.

Finally, step four is to plan and share your recommendation.

Pause the video here whilst you write down your recommendation and share it.

Well done for sharing your recommendation.

Let's have a look at Izzy's example.

She's recommended "Teacup", the text we saw earlier.

"I recommended 'Teacup' to a friend on our class blog.

I think they would like it as it's tenderly written and beautifully illustrated Picture book about moving from one place to another.

The story stayed with me a long time after reading it." I hope you were able to recommend a text that you had a personal connection with, also.

In the next part of our lesson, we're going to be looking at curating a bookshelf.

Well done for noticing the link between curating a bookshelf and our keyword of curation.

We'll be exploring what that means in this section.

To curate is to select, organise, and present a collection of books, artefacts, or artwork in a space.

Text curation is the process of presenting a selection of texts to an audience.

Creating a bookshelf is a great way to show your love of reading.

Recommendations can be made to others through formal or informal comments.

These ideas are based on the pupil recommendation shelf created by teacher John Biddle at the Open University.

You can visit the link below.

Text can be curated in a range of ways, including by theme, genre, form, that's how a text is presented.

You might curate by author, illustrator, or translator.

You can also curate by series order, colour, size of text, or personal favourites.

You might have seen some bookshelves which are organised by colour.

That's a way to curate a bookshelf.

It's not always possible to share recommendations verbally.

When curating a bookshelf, a short written comment can be added explaining how it links to the chosen curation.

Well done for noticing our keyword.

Here's our check for understanding based on what we've just learned.

Select the correct statements.

A, to curators to carefully select, organise and present a collection of books, artefacts, or artwork in a space.

B, to curators to randomly select and present a collection of books, artefacts, or artwork in a space.

C, text curation is the process of presenting a selection of texts to an audience.

Or D, texts can only be curated by genre.

When you're thinking about the correct statements, keep your eyes peeled, there may be more than one.

Pause the video now whilst you decide.

Great work, it's A and C.

To curate is to carefully select, organise, and present a collection of books, artefacts, or artworks in a space.

And text curation is the process of presenting a selection of texts to an audience.

It's not a random selection.

It has choice and agency.

You can curate by genre, but you can curate in a lot of other ways too.

When curating a bookshelf, the first thing you need to do is select the texts.

There are a few considerations you could ask yourself.

Are the texts diverse? Do they reflect a range of forms and genres? Do they reflect a range of authors and illustrators? When you have selected the texts, you can note down a brief recommendation celebrating the text.

Here's an example with the picture book graphic novel, "Saving Sorya: Chang and the Sun Bear".

The text recommendation might look like this.

This text has themes of environmentalism.

It's a graphic novel that explores the life of a young conservationist in Vietnam.

Once you've completed your written recommendations for each text, you can curate your own bookshelf.

Present the books with their texts facing out and their recommendations showing.

Just like in the example below.

You might like to use post-it notes to write your recommendations on.

Here's our final check for understanding.

Can you order the following steps for curating a bookshelf? Which statement comes first? What comes next? And what goes last? Label them one, two, and three.

Pause the video now whilst you do so.

Well done, let's have a look at the order together.

Step one is to choose a selection of texts.

This can be done in a variety of ways as we've looked at earlier.

Step two is to write a recommendation to celebrate the text.

This can be on a post-it note or a piece of paper.

Step three is to publish your curated bookshelf.

That means to put it on display.

If there's lots of you wanting to curate a bookshelf, perhaps you could organise it into weekly turns.

I hope you're inspired and might curate a selection of texts at home too.

In our final task, we're going to be curating our own bookshelf.

Step one is to choose approximately 10 texts that you'd like to include in your curated bookshelf.

Step two, write a brief recommendation celebrating each of these texts.

You might like to think about your audience or members of the class that you'd like to recommend each text to.

Step three, curate your own bookshelf.

Set up the text facing out if possible, and watch your recommendations get noticed and hopefully read.

The great thing with recommendations is they usually fly off the shelves.

You could partner up with a friend or family member to share the process.

Pause the video now whilst you go and curate your bookshelf.

Well done, I hope you enjoyed the process of curating your own bookshelf.

Now we've got a few questions to reflect upon.

The first one is, what was the impact of curating your bookshelf? What did you notice about the text that you had recommended? Did any friends pick up a particularly tailored recommendation? Were you surprised by which text went first? Secondly, did you enjoy making the recommendations for others and sharing them? Was it an enjoyable process? I hope it was.

Whilst completing the task, did you learn about a new text too? Perhaps a friend recommended the perfect text for you.

Before you go, I've got one final text to recommend.

It's called "Find Peace in a Poem".

As you can see from the front cover, there's a wide range of diverse poets.

This text contains a range of poems all about mindfulness.

Its topics range from listening for silence to being in the present moment.

It also introduces you to lots of different poets and artists.

I hope from completing this lesson that you are able to explore a range of different recommendations and also have a technique to display them.

In today's lesson, we've been developing reading preferences through text recommendations.

We know that text recommendations are an important part of developing reading for pleasure.

We found out that there are many ways to make a text recommendation that can be done verbally, visually, written or online.

Text can be curated in a range of ways.

Finally, curating a bookshelf can provide ownership of book displays and encourage readers to share recommendations building a reading community.

Well done for all your hard work.

See you soon.