I have been talking up the blog today as I entered in the last of the email addresses. I showed my students a formal SIA which I had written two years ago as a reflection of Chapter 1 of Mockingbird. In it I posed questions that came to mind as I read...is Boo crazy...why does Scout call her dad Atticus...why do we care about ancestry or the Battle of Hastings...questions like that. I explained that these kind of typed out journals used to be required as we read each chapter, but I was concerned that this ruined the continuity and joy of getting lost or enveloped in a good book. I then showed a second transparency which was simply a list of questions that popped up as I reread last night and I suggested that what I wanted them to do is to keep a reader's notebook, so to speak, which might consist of several questions or comments after each night's reading. This could be jotted down in their portfolio in the reader's workshop section (dated and/or chapter numbers) or it could simply be posted on the blog - using care not to get ahead and give away events from the story. I didn't think kids were really taking hold of this until after third block when two girls stopped me and asked if they had to do both because they really wanted to just blog and not keep the paper trail. We'll see. This should be interesting. (I've already found myself saying to two "discussion hogs" - "Gee, this would be something interesting to blog about!"