Community reviews for Goodreads

I am personally, a HUGE advocate of Goodreads. I use it almost daily, looking up recommendations and opinions about books on all sorts of topics. I love that Goodreads will recommend books based off of things that you've read, and I've found a tremendous number of new materials based off of those recommendations. I would say that perhaps the one negative is that it is a community where people are free to post whatever they wish, so there are occasions where you see some language or personal opinions that can get a bit jarring. However, I believe that its benefits GREATLY outweigh any negatives. And as a classroom tool, the students seem to enjoy it as well, as they can read real life reviews of potential books and resources. We are living in the Amazon age, where people base much of their shopping off of the reviews of others. Goodreads is no different in now that we can base our reading resources off of the review of a community of like minded readers. And what's also great about it, is once you set up an account, there are means of keeping track of what you've read and what you've reviewed. It's really just a great resource. I love Goodreads and it gets my highest recommendation!!!

It was not everything I hoped and dreamed it would be, unfortunately. The kids loved looking through the books and adding them to their shelves. It was just very difficult to manage as a teacher. Ideally, teachers could create classes and students could join those classes (like Google Classroom). That would allow for easier monitoring of book choices, as well as students' posts. There is not enough teacher control in regards to privacy and accessibility to the public. I can't believe Goodreads hasn't created an educator platform yet. I have found I have been able to have the kids do on paper everything I wanted them to do on the site.

For independent use, this would work much better for older grades. I also think though, that this source can be great for teachers to experience new books, find titles they have never heard of, check the reviews, and decide if this is a book that they want to bring into the classroom. If you have a student that is reluctant to read but you know of a title that they really love, then this website could give you options based off that title. I would use this website more in the way of accessing new titles and information, as much as I try to read, I am not going to know every book available but I need to know of an array of books that individually meet all my students interests. I believe that this is a great tool to help you do that!

This app serves to help build excitement about reading by personalizing genres and interests. Great quote section, trivia, and discussion options. Helps to engage the students with summaries and reviews, and soon to be released, can be broken down by author, and students can track what they read or what they want to read in the my books section.

It's a great teaching tool. I like that kids can read others' opinions on books as well as write their own. This helps them think critically and analytically about what they have read.

I love that Goodreads is a student-driven app. It tailors options to students based on interest and it can help them create, visualize and maintain reading goals. This app isn't going to teach a lesson for you, but it's a wonderful tool to supplement a choice-reading classroom.

This website is a great place to check before selecting a book to read. There are thousands of fantastic discussions happening, and I found many of my students were excited to join and talk about books. Overall, it's not the best site to design a lesson around, but it is a great help.

I honestly love using goodreads both in my classroom and in my personal life as well. Goodreads is very similar to a discovery process that many of my students are familiar with: Netflix. When students first sign up for a free account on the site, they go through a guided "quiz" to find out what kind of books they might be interested in. If a reluctant reader has only liked one book that he has ever read, he can choose that one book, and the site will give recommendations based on the style of the book. Teaching in a very low SES area, I find that many of my students are not exposed to a wide variety of literature at home and have no experience choosing books to read for themselves. When I take these students to the library to check out books for silent reading time, they are totally lost. If they are able to use a tool like goodreads to explore genres that they may be interested in, they can make a more informed decisions about what types of books to consider reading. Though there is a social media aspect of goodreads where students can have discussion about books that could be useful as well, I feel that the discovery portion of the site would be the most useful portion for my 10th grade students.

I think this is helpful to keep track of what students are reading and to have students write about what they are reading in a low-pressure environment. It allows students to get reading recommendations from each other, to interact with their classmates about literature and express their opinions (it is okay not to like a book!). I think it can also be a really useful tool to use as review for Regents or AP exams, as students can go back and review the books that they read, see summaries and see what they and their classmates have written about a book.

Goodreads is a great way to to enhance older students' learning and love of reading by introducing them to a world of readers where they can interact with others who share their reading interests. Another plus: Goodreads gives their writing about what they read a genuine audience. The only caveat: this is mostly an adult site and more appropriate for older readers.