Booktalk Stations Lesson Plan
Cathy Belben, Burlington-Edison High School Librarian

We’ve all been there: it’s the first week of school or the week before winter vacation, and every English teacher in the building wants to schedule library time for booktalks before they send their students off on break with a 400 page reading requirement. A day like this loomed ahead of me not long ago. Teachers squeezed into my office, begging me to help them with last-minute reading recommendations for their students. The schedule filled, and I had three days’—fifteen class periods’—worth of booktalking to do. Yikes. Even if I could muster the energy and enthusiasm to talk to that many groups, I knew I’d run out of material—I simply haven’t read, or can’t remember in inspiring detail—a large enough quantity to satisfy that demand.

Instead of canceling or performing mediocre recommendations, I decided to incorporate a lesson idea that P.E. teachers have been using since the beginning of time—or at least since 1972, when I started school:  stations. Using stations in the library for booktalks requires: 1) that you’re open to creative methods of sharing books with kids and not super-glued to the traditional stand-and-deliver booktalking; 2) that you have some time to plan and prepare a variety of stations (this isn’t a lesson you can do tomorrow—but you can probably do it next week) 3) that you have a few minutes to collaborate with the teachers on such matters as assigning students to groups before they come to the library; 4) that the teachers will commit to an entire class period for the lesson; and 5) that you have the patience and space for a little bit of chaos. Depending on the types of stations you plan, you’ll probably also need access to computers and internet access.

Before the class arrives in the library for booktalking stations, I ask the teacher to divide students into groups and explain a little about the lesson and its goal, which is for everyone to learn about a wide variety of books and, with any luck, find one they’ll enjoy. In the library, I’ve labeled each station clearly with a stand-up plastic sign holder that explains its activity. I have the computers turned on, logged in, and set on the web page or Power Point presentation that the students will be viewing at that station.

When the class arrives, I explain the procedures, hand out a sheet that they’ll use, and we all do Station 1 together:  this is a brief, traditional booktalk presentation of a few books. Then the students rotate, spending about 5-7 minutes at each of the stations described below. At each station, in addition to the activities described, students are to select and describe why one of the books presented appeals to them.

Station 1:  Booktalks
At this station, students listen as the librarian presents some of her favorite books. 

Station 2:  Internet Slide Show
At this station, students go through a PowerPoint slide show posted on the library web page. The slide show presents a book cover and briefly describes the book’s contents.

Station 3:  Book Browsing
There is a pile of books at this station. Students browse them independently for 3 minutes, and then each person at the station explais which one appealed to them most. 

Station 4:  Book Review Websites 
Students visit 5 book review sites that have been pre-selected, such as Reading Rants (http://tln.lib.mi.us/~amutch/jen/ ), Teen Ink (http://teenink.com/Books/ ), and Teen Reads (http://www.teenreads.com/ ).

Station 5:  Book Review Browsing
At this station, students browses book reviews online. They will read book reviews on the library home page (or from a pre-selected list of web sites).

Station 6:  Shelf Browsing
Each member of the group is assigned to a different section of the Dewey Decimal System, and spends three minutes browsing the shelves in that section. Each member returns to his/her group with one book they found that appeals to them and tells their group about it.

Station 7:  Bibliography Browsing
A number of bibliographies (booklists) are available at this station. Each member of the group skims the list they choose and then tells the group about one book they read about that appealed to them.

Tom Lockhart, an English teacher who brought in four of his classes for the activity, said he thought “Overall the activity was a positive way to introduce the kids to the breadth and depth of non-fiction choices.  I watched the kids' responses as you introduced various titles from a cross section of interest areas.  At one time or another, most of the audience found something in your book choices that interested them.” Lockhart also noted that the offerings students heard about or saw led them to ask about other books on similar topics.

Librarians are readers and lovers of great books—we appreciate humor and language and great story-telling. Perhaps the most gifted among us can read and remember enough titles to satisfy the demand for books that aren’t “boring” or “stupid” and meet the needs of our fairly finicky teen audience. But if you begin to suspect that you’re running out of material, you might consider a variation on your current performance. With some forethought and planning, you can set up stations of your own, and introduce students to wider range of reading material than you previously thought possible.