I participated in a wonderful #titletalk Twitter chat last night. I mentioned that I provided my students with a list of independent reading Personal Challenge options for them to choose and undertake. Several participants asked for a copy, so I promised I would post it this morning.

Here is a little background about this list.

First, for the last six years, I have devoted the first 10 minutes of every class to independent choice reading. I currently teach at an independent middle school and have 45 minute class periods (the longest I have ever had to teach middle school ELA is 52 minutes), but I believe choice reading is time well spent. We have a slightly shorter school year than the local public schools, so I changed the traditional 40 book challenge to 30 to accommodate.

Second, my school emphasizes the study of literature so, with the exception of one, the challenges are for fiction books.

Third, there are no rewards for these challenges. They are merely a fun option to get them engaged and they seem to enjoy setting their own goals.

Fourth, there is the option to design their own challenge which several students chose to develop.

If I come up with any more ideas, I am going to add them to the list for next year. Please let me know what you would add.

Below is the document I created with details of the challenges. Feel free to adapt for your own use.

Personal Book Challenge Ideas

Update: this is a graphic I created of the Personal Book challenges using Canva.

Mizerny Personal Reading Challenges

image courtesy of: freedigitalphotos.net