I recently gave my students an end of the quarter survey to see how they felt the year was going. In looking at survey after survey, my seventh graders repeatedly listed our daily book talks as one of their favorite parts of our class. They had positive things to say about finding other kids in class who liked the same books they did, discovering new books to add to their to read list, and the community feel of all of us gathering in the front of the room to begin our day. While I did begin the year with weeks of book talks from me, the students have taken over and manage this routine day to day. Today I asked them to give you some advice from the experts, what makes a great book talk? Here’s what they had to say:

1. It’s all in the planning

Ben reminded us of…