Welcome to the new school year! We have exciting things happening in the Troy Middle School Media Centers with the launch of our new-and-improved 2017 Troybery Awards Program. For those of you who are new middle school parents and may not be familiar with Troybery, here is a brief history. For the past 16 years, the Troy middle school media specialists have chosen the top ten middle grade books of the year, encouraged students to read these books from January until April, and set up a voting program so that students could vote for the Troybery award-winner. Now in our 17th year of running the Troybery program, we have decided to make some changes to reflect feedback that we have received over the years as well as align with the goals of our English Language Arts teachers to create communities of readers at our schools. what is the "new" troybery?
We know that there are a lot of holes in our list--that's where the students come in. We would love for you and your child to scour the public library or bookstore to look for a book we might not have found yet. If your child finds something great, s/he can submit a recommendation here. We will keep updating the list of potential books until January. Who knows: your child could be the one who finds the next Troybery winner! how will students choose the winner?Our plan is that students will be able to read the books from now until March, when we will hold a March Madness-style tournament to narrow down the options to the usual top 10. Students will vote in April for the Troybery winner. The ceremony will take place on April 28, where the winner will be announced. are there any requirements?We are still requiring students to read three books to vote. However....the books could be any of the ones on our list of 20+ potential books. This will allow students to have more options rather than having to read three out of the top ten. If a student just wants to read all realistic fiction, that is totally fine. If s/he chooses one from each genre, great! Why are there stars by some of the book titles?A few of the books on the list are starred to mark them as "mature." They are books that would be better suited for 8th grade readers than 6th grade. In past years, we have noticed the phenomenon that participation in Troybery dwindles after 6th grade. We would like to get 8th graders excited about Troybery by including titles that would interest them. In no way are we saying that 6th graders need to read these titles. Please review the book list with your child and determine which books feel right for him or her. If you have any questions about the mature titles, please email your media specialist. Why don't you have copies of the books yet?Don't worry, we will have them soon! They are on order. As we see which books become popular, we will order more. We are not ordering 20 copies of every book since we have such a large list of books to start. Until then, your child could find the books at the public library, on MeLCat, on Amazon, or at the bookstore. What is #Troyberytuesday?On Tuesdays, we will be posting questions on the media center Schoology group about Troybery, as well as commenting on social media with the hashtag #TroyberyTuesday. Join in on the fun, and let's get the hashtag trending! Tweet pictures of your children reading Troyberys or share photos on Instagram of the books your child is reading. Tag Mrs. Chatel on Twitter @medialoguer!
We look forward to a fun, new Troybery experience where students are helping us make the big decisions!
2 Comments
|
Mrs. Christina Chatel, MLISA teacher librarian at Boulan Park and Smith Middle Schools in Troy, Michigan. Archives
October 2017
Categories |