One School's Reading Blog Project

I came across a link to The Guerrilla Season Book Blog a few weeks ago & put it in Bloglines so I wouldn't forget about it when the project started (10/23). It is a project at South Valley Jr. High, in Liberty Missouri. 300 8th grade students will read the book The Guerrilla Season by Pat Hughes and will participate in discussions via the blog. The book is about the Civil War in Missouri, so there is a local connection as well. In addition to posting questions regarding each assigned reading, the blog moderators will also have the author participate.

I think this is such an innovative idea for teaching both reading and history. I like the variation on the One City/One Book idea (everyone reading the same book) and I think that the participative nature of the blog is a great way to get kids to connect with a work. There are schools in California and Louisiana participating too. I will not be able to read this book at this time, but I intend to check in on the blog from time to time to see how the project is going.