Columbia sixth-graders review, post book recommendations in blogs

MADISON – Chandler Nguyen highly recommends “The Son of Neptune,” and Paige Lowry appreciates the suspense in the “The Bad Beginning.” For details, read blogs that Chandler and Paige post at Columbia Elementary School.

Joan Comer, standing, helps her students at Columbia Elementary School with blogs that they post to review books. (CONTRIBUTED)

Joan Comer’s sixth-grade class is applying classroom technology with blogs for book reviews. “Their goal is to persuade other students to read those very books,” Comer said.

To grab readers’ attention, the Columbia students organize their summary with a strong opening, “tease” readers about the plot and build interest in finding the resolution. “English conventions and mechanics are enhanced as the blogs are polished as we practice new skills in class, like capitalization, punctuation and connotations,” Comer said.

The students like book series, such as “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” by Jeff Kinney, Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling and authors Jerry Spinelli, Andrew Clements and Rick Riordian.

Comer’s classroom has four desktop computers and eight laptops. She checks out Columbia’s iPad cart as needed. Students can access their blog from home.

Kidblog.org, a secure, educational website, is their main tool. Comer must place users in a registry to access the site.

Paige Lowry ‘blogged’ that “The Bad Beginning” concerns young siblings Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire threatened “with a terrible man chasing after their fortune.” Freya Mackenzie blogged about renowned detective Eleanor Owl in “A Summer in the South.”

For “The Son of Neptune,” Chandler Nguyen wrote “two new unique and inscrutable heroes join together with the long-lost Percy Jackson on a long expedition into unknown jeopardy. (This book) will grab your attention and never let it go.”

“My students enjoy writing, seeing their work ‘published’ and sharing (about) books,” Comer said. Comer requires feedback from students who read a classmate’s recommendation.

“For the first assignment, students were allowed to choose a favorite book to blog about,” Comer said. Their next assignment will concentrate on promoting one particular genre, historical fiction, and identifying elements in these texts.