Word of mouth reading

How Can Student Created Book Reviews Promote Reading?

This should be the post where I tell you about Troy High, an intriguing and inventive novel which sets the Trojan War in a modern American high school. But I can’t. I haven’t read it.


In fact, I haven’t even seen Troy High since a student purchased it for our classroom at a Scholastic book fair three weeks ago. Claudia borrowed it and then gave it to Emily, who passed it on to the other Claudia, who will then pass it on to Kiersten. But Angelica promised to bring in her copy for her other classmates to borrow, so there’s a chance I might get to read it sometime before June. That is, unless, it begins to circulate among the other two sections of my sixth grade classes. Shana Norris, consider your book a big hit with middle schoolers!


And it’s not just a girl thing, either. The boys have been swapping graphic novels like crazy, especially with the upcoming visit of Amulet author Kazu Kibuishi to our school.


The point is, word of mouth «sells» books, especially among middle and high school students. If peer recommendations are such powerful motivators, then we as teachers should take advantage of them, especially if they’ll encourage our students to read.


Student Book Review Sites


Below I’ve described some sites where students can read book reviews by kids their age, and submit theirs as well.


Scholastic’s Share What You’re Reading site not only provides students with opportunities to read and write reviews, but also features How to Write a Book Review with Rodman Philbrick. Book reviews are separated by genre (classics, nonfiction, myths, fantasy and science fiction, etc.) and also grade level (K-12). Please note, however, that Scholastic quite clearly notes on their submission form that due to the large number of submissions they receive, they cannot publish all reviews.

Spaghetti Book Club has been around for years, and continues to boast a huge collection of student written reviews, alphabetized by title. Students can also locate books by author’s name, which they can do, of course, just as easily on Amazon or any online library catalog, but this site then offers other students’ perspectives on books by that author. If you choose to participate as a class, you can group your students’ reviews together (see a random class), which provides easy reference for students and parents. Please note, however, that Spaghetti Book Club, unlike Share What You’re Reading, is a for-pay site which works with schools, providing a curriculum which leads to the publishing of student reviews.


And that’s it. I’m stopping there. The fact is, I spent hours checking out sites featuring book reviews by students, and all have at least one constraint that will keep all of your students from sharing reviews.


So let me now share the best option: Create Your Own Book Review Site.


Don’t let that idea scare you off. You could easily use a blog, wiki, or a student-oriented social media site to publish student reviews. 
Advantages: these sites are free, these sites are as public or as private as you choose, you control the format and content, and all students get their reviews posted. 
Disadvantages: Just a little bit more work for you.

Creating Your Own Review Sites

I’m a big fan of PBWorks, a wiki provider. My sixty-five Reading/LA students store much of their digital work in a single class wiki which we call our WikiWorkspace. This allows students to easily access their own work from one location, and read and comment upon their classmates’ work as well. Visitors can read what’s posted, but are prevented from commenting or editing. So far we’ve got over one thousand pages and images stored there (including Prezis and videos), and yet we’ve used just this much of our allotted free space:

On a separate wiki called Monsters Inked, we posted stories in which we collaborated with second graders. Both of these examples illustrate the simplicity of the site. Classroom accounts are free, student accounts are password protected, and the teacher sees all. The site allows embedding of many digital formats, so book reviews need not be static, text-only affairs. Students could easily choose to create book reviews in Photo Story or video format, both of which can be embedded here. (For Photo Story inspiration, check out Mark Geary’s article on that topic).


Wikispaces is another wiki provider which I’ve used in collaboration with other educators, but never in my own classroom. This sample review page shows how a template might be created for a book review which incorporates multimedia.


The following video shows you the collaborative nature of any wiki, regardless of the provider.

Edmodo is a closed, social media site for students. I’ve used that as well, and highly recommend it. You can read what I had to say about Edmodo at my Teaching that Sticks site, both before and after implementing. This site could easily accommodate student book reviews, and offer peers the opportunity to comment as well.

My class has recently used Collaborize Classroom. Collaborize allows students more opportunity to create original content than Edmodo. Students can post book reviews which include opportunities for peers to vote, suggest and vote, or simply comment. I’ve also blogged in the past how Collaborize can help teachers fuel classroom discussions. The video below provides a basic overview of the site’s features.

Let it be known, my class hasn’t created book reviews. Yet. But like reading Troy High, it’s something on my To Do List, and something I think I’ll enjoy. (Shana Norris, if you’re reading this, my students request that you please write a follow-up soon!).


What are your experiences with creating student book reviews? What application or program would you recommend? How are completed projects shared with peers? And most importantly, what else are you doing in and out of your classroom to take advantage of the power of word of mouth to get students reading?

Not though you die to-night, O Sweet, and wail,

A spectre at my door,

Shall mortal Fear make Love immortal fail —

I shall but love you more,

Who from Death’s house returning, give me still

One moment’s comfort in my matchless ill.

Shadow Houses.

This tale may be explained by those who know how souls are made, and where the bounds of the Possible are put down. I have lived long enough in this country to know that it is best to know nothing, and can only write the story as it happened.

Dumoise was our Civil Surgeon at Meridki, and we called him «Dormouse,» because he was a round little, sleepy little man. He was a good Doctor and never quarrelled with any one, not even with our Deputy Commissioner, who had the manners of a bargee and the tact of a horse. He married a girl as round and as sleepy-looking as himself. She was a Miss Hillardyce, daughter of «Squash» Hillardyce of the Berars, who married his Chief’s daughter by mistake. But that is another story.

A honeymoon in India is seldom more than a week long; but there is nothing to hinder a couple from extending it over two or three years. This is a delightful country for married folk who are wrapped up in one another. They can live absolutely alone and without interruption — just as the Dormice did. These two little people retired from the world after their marriage, and were very happy. They were forced, of course, to give occasional dinners, but they made no friends hereby, and the Station went its own way and forgot them; only saying, occasionally, that Dormouse was the best of good fellows, though dull. A Civil Surgeon who never quarrels is a rarity, appreciated as such.

Для перехода между страницами книги вы можете использовать клавиши влево и вправо на клавиатуре.

It’s the first Wednesday night in March, and the second story of the Globe is filling fast. The lights are low, and a fire is crackling in the back of the room. People are claiming spots on couches and pulling chairs up to tables. Friends greet each other. Pages shuffle. The lone microphone standing on the small stage is checked. Liquid courage is gathered. Periodically, attendees set down their drinks to scrawl their names in a notebook near the stage.

Sociologically, it would be hard to tell what’s going on if you didn’t already know; conservatively dressed men and women chat pleasantly with hipsters, punks and clean-cut UGA undergrads. The age range in the room spans more than 50 years, yet everyone seems to know each other. 

A little after eight, Aralee Strange takes the stage to introduce this month’s Word of Mouth open-mic poetry reading. Every reader who signs up will have 10 minutes, she explains. After the break, the featured reader―tonight, Steve Maurer of Philadelphia―will go, followed by more open mic. Strange, a lanky 69-year-old woman in jeans and heavy black boots, has a gravelly Alabama accent, a tiny black lightning bolt tattooed on her cheek and a warm manner that puts people immediately at ease. As founder and organizer of the series, Strange acts as host and emcee throughout the night, catching up with regulars, welcoming newcomers and introducing readers with commentary.

The sign-up list is not capped: 27 people read at the previous month’s gathering, and the event went past midnight. But attendance of the full three to four hours isn’t mandatory. People come and go throughout the night, refreshing their drinks or taking cigarette breaks, or leaving to study for tests or go to bed early. Some don’t show up until 10 p.m. A surprising number, however, not only stays the full three hours of the night’s reading but lingers afterward to chat longer.

“Sign up. Mouth off. Pay attention” is the motto of the series, and as it turns out, there exists in Athens a devoted contingent of people ready to do just that. 

“A Meeting Point for Every Walk of Life”

Though there’s no shortage of poetry events in Athens, Word of Mouth is the only regular open reading, and the remarkable diversity of the group can be attributed in part to its welcoming environment. 

“There’s no sense of ‘Who are you? Where have you published? Blah, blah, blah… ,’” says Strange. “There are people who have been published, and there are people who haven’t. There are all levels as far as craft, and all levels of poetry, and we don’t judge them about that.” 

And the poems read run the complete stylistic gamut, from confessionalism to surrealism to rhythmic spoken word. Some poems are challenging and political, some are funny and anecdotal. Some readers ooze confidence, gesturing and posing as they perform; others read shyly from their pages or cell phones. But the crowd is receptive, and throughout the night the readings are punctuated with “hmms” and “yeahs” and “wows.” Some poems draw cheers. Writers hug each other.

“It is difficult to explain how special it is,” says Michelle Castleberry, a clinical social worker who has written poetry on and off since childhood. “The diversity of voices, sometimes answering, sometimes challenging each other. The way it draws writers of different styles and perspectives. At the breaks and before and after, I am always struck by the connections that get made there, and wonder in what other context that would be possible.”

“It offers a meeting point for every walk of life,” says Ciera Durden, a UGA student majoring in English and Japanese.  “I have met published authors, students, criminals, singers, social workers, the rich, the poor―it’s a place for literally every part of the Athens culture, where anyone can communicate, because we’re all there for the same purpose: to speak and to listen.”

Beyond the English Department

Word of Mouth started in December 2009, the brainchild of Strange, a poet and playwright who had moved to Athens from Cincinnati two years earlier. 

“I had friends here, but didn’t know any poets. I just figured that in a town like this, there’s going to be some poets somewhere, and I thought the only way to meet them was to start a reading. So, I originally started it just to see who was out there and see if it would fly.” 

Strange had been part of northern Ohio’s active poetry scene for 25 years and had organized open-mic series before, so she knew the drill. The Globe was one of the first bars she visited in Athens, and when she saw a poster of Samuel Beckett on the wall and the stage upstairs, she knew it was the place. Wednesdays were slow nights, and the bar was happy to accommodate her experiment. Strange placed ads in Flagpole and hung posters around town; the Banner-Herald wrote an article about her plan. She invited a poet friend from Ohio to be the featured reader. 

The open reading was such a success that after a few months it was no longer necessary to even advertise; people knew to show up the first Wednesday of each month. As the passionate response proved, poetry was already part of the lives of many Athenians beyond UGA’s English department or creative writing program. Word of Mouth offered a place for them to commune. 

One regular reader from Watkinsville who wasn’t in attendance this week told Strange when they first met that she hadn’t read a poem aloud since sixth grade, though she’d written poetry all her life. 

“She was very nervous, and then she proceeded to read three just lovely poems,” Strange recalls. “It just makes my heart sing when that happens.”

Many Word of Mouth members say that the group inspired them to write again and to expand their craft. Alex Johns had been seriously interested in poetry for years, but found it difficult to make space for that kind of writing while working and finishing his Ph.D. Now an English professor at University of North Georgia, he attended his first Word of Mouth reading a year and a half ago and soon began writing poems regularly again. 

“I credit Aralee and Word of Mouth for rekindling my love of poetry and for helping me to gain confidence and find a voice as a writer, and I know I’m not alone in that sentiment,” he says.

The first writer to show up at the very first reading was Donald Harris, a quiet, elderly man who lived in an apartment downtown. Harris faithfully attended every month after that, reading three poems each time, which he called “presentations.” 

“He never talked much to anyone,” says Strange. “Everybody tried, but he was a taciturn old fellow.  But he stayed to the end of each reading and listened intently to others.  Sometimes he would respond the following month to a poem or a line he had heard the previous month.  He never missed a reading.” 

One night, Harris came to the front to read and apologized for having only two presentations; he’d suffered a stroke the week before. “He blew our minds with that one!” 

When Harris passed away in 2011 from complications of diabetes, Word of Mouth held a memorial reading in his honor, which included a recording of him reading. Some of his family members were able to attend and hear his poems for the first time.

Poetry as Expression

Everyone in the room shares a passion for poetry, but poetry plays different roles in different people’s lives. For some, it’s an important form of self-expression. Says Durden, “Poetry is my greatest outlet and has also been my greatest source of strength and confidence. I’m primarily a confessional poet, so to be able to take something that is [usually] very difficult and make it ‘art’ is a sort of relief. If you can take something abstract and turn it into something you can vocalize, read, hold in your hands, it suddenly feels like the power has been transferred from that entity to you.”

Bob Ambrose wrote poetry in college, but it wasn’t until he retired in 2009 from a career in environmental engineering with the EPA that his love of writing was renewed. 

“We were taking care of my father at home then, and when he  passed away two months later, a poem about his last night just came to me. ‘A Summer Morning’s Leave’ was read at his memorial service. After that, my  poetry seemed to open back up,” says Ambrose. 

His poems often explore spirituality as well as scientific knowledge. Tonight, he reads “Vacuum Collapse,” which was inspired by last summer’s isolation of the Higgs boson and the resulting revelation that the universe may be in a more precarious state than previously thought. He invites the audience to find him later if they’d like more background about the science, and several people do. Ambrose’s performance is also notable in that he is “off book”―since presenting as the featured reader last summer he set a goal of reciting his poems from memory rather than reading them from the page.

For others, poetry offers a powerful tool of witness and a way to educate listeners or readers about injustice. Jay Morris draws a strong reaction from the crowd with his poem “asl” (a chat room acronym for age/sex/location), which begins as a meditation on the casual racism he’s seen in online chat rooms for young gay men. 

“You have such an umbrella character trait like sexual orientation, it’s easy to overlook that the people encompassed in that umbrella might not necessarily know how to communicate with or tolerate each other due to lack of experience or whatever,” he explains later. “It’s been shelved because typical LGBT issues like marriage equality, adoption rights, et cetera have taken the forefront of the media. I thought it would be cool to inform people about this lesser known problem.” 

The poem also draws from articles he read as he increasingly became aware of the issue. The youngest regular Word of Mouth member, Morris began attending as a high school student at Cedar Shoals when a friend encouraged him to go to a reading. He is now a freshman at UGA majoring in health promotion and behavior.

Speaking out through poetry isn’t always a comfortable process; Jorge Terrell, a local computer tech and a regular reader known to his Word of Mouth friends as “Kagy,” reads a poem written in response to a work read the month before that angered him with its treatment of race. In introducing the poem, he seems tense, and warns the group that they may not like what they’re about to hear. When he finishes, Strange thanks him and tells the audience that this kind of “call and response” between poems is positive and welcome. Terrell remains for the rest of the event, and several friends voice support for his honesty.

A Friendship in Poetry

Part of poetry’s magic is its ability to bring people together and cement relationships. For Steve Maurer and Mark Bromberg, tonight’s reading is also a chance to honor a four-decade friendship. Bromberg, a freelance writer who worked for many years as a journalist and film editor in Atlanta, has been involved with Word of Mouth for the past few years. He suggested his friend Maurer as a featured reader. 

The two men met in an English poetry class at Syracuse University in the early 1970s; they became good friends after Maurer borrowed a book from Bromberg. Both admired Beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, and their shared love of poetry was an important part of their friendship. Unfortunately, they lost touch for many years after college, though they both remembered each other fondly. Both continued writing poetry. Fifteen years ago, Bromberg looked Maurer up on the Syracuse alumni website and was shocked to see that Maurer was listed as deceased. He was saddened that he’d waited too long to say hello.

Of course, Maurer was not really dead―tired of receiving junk mail from the university, he’d asked his brother to report his death. Two years ago, he and Bromberg reconnected on Facebook, and they began sending each other poems again. 

“Since reconnecting, we’ve shared a lot of emails and phone calls about the creative process, and some of those emails take the shape of poems responding to certain issues each of us raise. It’s really wonderful to have the time to focus energies on our creative paths,” Bromberg says. 

Maurer lives in Philadelphia and works in public relations and marketing, but when Bromberg invited him to Athens for the Word of Mouth reading, he accepted. This is his first visit. Tonight, Bromberg reads for 10 minutes at the open mic, and between poems he reminisces to the audience about the good times and poems he and Maurer have shared. Maurer tells his own stories when his turn comes. Many of the poems he reads are recent, but he also produces the typescript of a poem he’d written 30 years ago for Bromberg and had saved all this time. 

Until Next Month . . .

Word of Mouth is the longest-running poetry series Strange has organized, and by all signs it is going strong. She’s already excited for April’s reading, which will feature two poets she met in Ohio: Ralph LaCharity and Ben Gulyas. 

“Ralph LaCharity is a kind of shaman-like figure; his performance is like watching someone in a trance, channeling his muse, pulling poems from memory,” she says. “Magnificent voice, deep and nuanced, he moves around as though hearing some music only he can hear; it’s a mesmerizing thing to watch.  Ben Gulyas seems to be from another time, maybe the ’30s or ’40s. He writes about the unseen in our society: bums and drunks and wise old men of the street.  He has a couple of characters who appear regularly in his poems, telling their sad stories.  He finds beauty in the back alleys and side streets that few frequent.  He also writes about the natural world, including at times the calls of birds and other creatures.  Wonderful stuff.” 

LaCharity and Gulyas will be featured in the reading to take place on Wednesday, Apr. 3 at 8 p.m. at the Globe.

When tonight’s festivities finish up, a little after 11 p.m., energy is running high. The crowd has thinned, but not substantially. Rather than feeling fatigued after three hours of poetry, the Word of Mouth tribe exudes celebration, congratulating each other on new work and telling each other what moved them during the reading, and basking in the glow of each other’s company, perhaps already thinking of a line for a new poem.

Next month, they’ll be back again, ready to share new poems and celebrate the power of the spoken word.

Word of Mouth meets the first Wednesday of every month at 8 p.m. at The Globe, 199 N. Lumpkin St. Readings are free and open to the public. For more information, visit http://www.athenswordofmouth.com/.

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Blogger: Rachel Zurakowski

Location: Books & Such main office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

A recommendation from a trusted individual goes a long way in influencing a person to read a book. Why do you think publishers are always asking for endorsements on projects? Readers are highly motivated by those little recommendations. The bigger the name, the better because more people will be influenced to read the book if they recognize the name.

I think, if publishers could, they would rather tailor endorsements to individual readers. Wouldn’t you rather read a book your best friend recommended instead of one Oprah liked? I think my best friends have a better idea than Oprah does of what I enjoy reading. I value the opinion of my friends because I know that they enjoy similar books. We’ve had success sharing books in the past. We enjoy discussing the books after they’ve been shared between us. It’s fun and it gives us another way to connect. This is also why many people participate in book clubs.

Friend recommendations and book club recommendations expand a reader’s horizons. You end up reading books that you wouldn’t have picked on your own, and many times they’re great books! If you don’t have a “book-buddy” you should try it. Ask your good friend for a book recommendation and recommend one in return. Ta-da! You have a new “book-buddy.” Easy!

I think that the importance of a recommendation is one of the reasons that reader reviews are so beneficial on websites like Christianbook.com or Amazon.com. A reader review gives you the opinion of a “real reader,” someone just like you, instead of an endorser who HOPEFULLY actually read the book. Most endorsers really do read the projects, but some don’t. Isn’t that sad?

Word-of-mouth is a powerful tool. The book, The Shack, by William P. Young, was self-published and sold hundreds of thousands of copies because of word-of-mouth before it was picked up for traditional publication.  I’m sure this isn’t the only word-of-mouth success story. I bet most bestsellers got to that level because of word-of-mouth. Money spent in marketing can be great, but if readers aren’t talking about a book, the sales aren’t going to be as good.

These days, communicating your opinion to all of your friends is one of the easiest things to do. I let my friends know through my Facebook news feed when I’m going to the gym or eating dinner–like they care. I think I’ll start using my Facebook page to promote the books I love. I want my friends to experience the same emotional connection I feel when I read my favorite books. I also want to help my favorite authors because they did such a great job writing a beautiful book! I bet my friends are going to be happy to have something interesting to read in my little news box. What about you? Are you going to endorse a book today? Feel free to do so on our blog!