From left: CMS West Seventh-Grade ELAR teacher Julie Price and Seventh-Grade student Kartikeya Sreeramoju.
Seventh-grade students at CMS West Middle School recently embarked on an innovative learning experience, diving deep into the world of podcasts to explore literary themes in self-selected books the learners read.
Led by seventh-grade English and Language Arts teacher Julie Ann Price and the educator team of Samia Barakat, Stephanie Howell and Dianalyn Perkins, students were able to pick a “just right” novel for them for this assignment. Choosing their own books allowed students to explore a rich collection of writing and enjoy a personalized reading and learning experience. Students participated in daily reading sessions, where they used metacognitive skills to delve into their chosen narratives, capturing insights, making connections and capturing overarching themes that they noted in their reading in response journals.
According to Price, students made connections, predictions and inferences as they read. When they finished their reading, they summarized the novels and then created a list of “big ideas” from which a theme could be inferred.
“From there, we introduced the podcast project that would give them an avenue for sharing their reading experience,” Price said. “The challenge now was to find other people in class who had common ‘big ideas’ in order to make authentic text-to-text connections between the group members' books as the glue for their podcast.”
Students began by breaking up by genre, and then they shared about their books and the thematic topics addressed in each to find connections and form groups of two to four students for the podcast.
Student Kartikeya Sreeramoju chose the book “The Plot to Kill Hitler: Execution” by Andie Marino, and described it as “a thrilling tale about a daring attempt to assassinate Hitler, filled with suspense and intrigue.”
Pranada Kancharla
Sreeramoju and his partner, Pranada Kancharla, then worked together on a podcast titled "Teen Teams: Horror and Suspense Stories About Teens Fighting Evil." This podcast became a platform for the group to delve into novels that had a similar theme of thrilling adventures of courageous teenagers confronting dark forces.
He described this project as an incredible opportunity for him and his classmates to discuss and share their passion for their books.
“We not only learned how to create podcasts about literature, but we also discovered the diverse book interests among our friends," Sreeramoju said.
The students’ podcast episodes, shared on Flipgrid in the class and then amongst the entire school, sparked engaging discussions and book recommendations among peers, spreading enthusiasm for reading and storytelling among the learners.
"This assignment emphasized collaboration, student interests and the power of storytelling,” Price said. “It's inspiring to witness the passion for literacy that has emerged from this project."