FEATUREARTICLE

Rethinking
Reading Promotion
Old School Meets Technology
ROSEMARY CHANCE AND TERI LESESNE Peer reviewed. Accepted for publication, June I, 2012
A
big challenge for teacher librarians is
promoting books and reading in middle
schools and high schools.
Research shows that elementary students are eager to learn to read and love to check out
books from school and public libraries. However, the National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP), often referred to as the Nation's Repori Card, reporis that middle and
high school students spend less time reading for pleasure than their elementary school
counterparis (NAEP, 2011). Reading for pleasure has decreased in the first decade of this
new century according to research by the Programme for International Student Assess-
ment (PISA), an organization that takes an international snapshot of the reading interests,
habits, and performance of schools. If reading for pleasure is associated strongly with bet-
ter performance on tests, how can we promote more reading? Can the emerging technolo-
gies assist teacher librarians as they plan and implement reading promotions?
Teacher librarians who work with teens know that planned promotion of books works.
Joni Bodarihas shown repeatedly in her books how successful booktalks can be. Research
has demonstrated that this type of personal introduction to a book is valuable in help-
ing connect books and readers. Now that technoiogy is being thoroughly integrated into
school libraries, teacher librarians have more choices for promoting reading than delivery
of a traditional booktalk. In the spirit of a learning commons environment, everyone in a
school communify can be involved in combinations of technology and personal involve-
ment. In the United States, the Common Core Standards are adding nonfiction as another
dimension to this mix, and, if we add students and teachers into this mix as well, quite a
different culture is likely to emerge in the promotion of reading.
BOOKTALKS
Booktalks can be the basis of reading promotion. A traditional booktaik is a brief adver-
tisement for a book delivered in person to a group of students by a teacher librarian, class-
room teacher, or a student. The idea of a booktalk is to entice potential readers to want to
read a pariicular book. Booktalks work well with students in grades 4-12. Award-winning
books are reliable sources for booktalk choices as they are chosen for qualify writing and
for reader appeal. For grades 4-6, you couid booktaik the latest Newbery Medal winner:
2 6 TEACHER LIBRARIAN 39: 5
Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos. For
young adults, the Michael Printz Award
winners may be appealing. Maggie Stief-
vater's The Scorpio Races, a 2012 Printz
Honor Book, lends itself well to booktalk-
ing for its unusual and compelling plot.
With the new emphasis on nonfiction,
new and exciting titles can join the pro-
motional parade. Karen Blumenthal's Boot-
leg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless
Years of Prohibition and Matt Phelan's
Around the World are two informational
titles guaranteed to catch the attention of
teens and tweens. Including serious books
such as Susan Campbell Barioletti's They
Call Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an
American Terrorist Group and humorous
books such as Georgia Bragg's How They
Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully
Eamous will add interest to any booktalk
session.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF
TRADITIONAL BOOKTALKS?
Help students find books they will en-
j oy
Develop a rappori between students
and adults.
Show students enthusiasm for books.
Show students that their peers and
adults are willing to help them find
the kinds of books they will enjoy.
Highlight reading and books without
additional funding.
HOW ARE TRADITIONAL
BOOKTALKS CREATED?
Find a book the booktalker loves.
Read all of it more than once.
Decide on a hook that will catch stu-
dents' attention quickly.
Describe the basic plot of the story
without giving away the ending.
Describe a funny, dramatic or interest-
ing scene.
Describe an intriguing character.
Take the role of the main character.
Read a few sentences or a paragraph.
Use some words from the book to give
students the flavor of the story.
End with a summarizing statement.
Have an overall topic in mind if you're
booktalking six or more books. It
helps tie them together.
Look students in the eye as you talk.
Show the front cover of each book us-
ing a PowerPoint projection.
Invite students to reserve copies of the
book if there is high demand for the
titles.
With very little modification to the older
principles above, the promoter can share
almost anything in any format, especially
by using current technologyAnd, with the
integration of technology into students'
lives, the traditional booktalk can easily
morph into other forms that will be used
by everyone in the learning communify.
Thus, by stretching the promotion from
books to other forms including nonfiction,
blogs, websites, and even multimedia, we
extend literacy as a part of a larger school
culture. We begin to think of a culture that
promotes the best of the best across a wide
variefy of genres, formats, and by using a
wide variefy of technologies. One of the
most popular forms is the "book" trailer; a
term we will retain even though it has an
expanded context.
BOOK TRAILERS
Teresa Schauer, a teacher librarian in
Texas, runs Book Trailers for All, a Web
site dedicated to giving teacher librarians
access to book trailers (You Tube and other
providers are often blocked by school dis-
tricts' filters; see http://booktrailersforall.
com). Trailers are created by teachers, stu-
dents, and librarians, as well as authors
and publishers, and are available for free
downloading on Schauer's site. Schauer
reporis: "Over the past couple of years I've
actually been doing a lot of thinking about
what makes book trailers so successful-
ESPECLALLY with regard to reluctant read-
ers, and I think it has to do with lacking the
abilify of 'making a movie' in their minds."
What is a book trailer? Book trail-
ers are a visual representation of a book.
In one way book trailers are similar to a
movie trailer; they are designed to interest
a reader in a pariicular book. The pariicu-
lar challenge of a book trailer is converiing
Book Trailers for All
rhe Oo-ro Place for Sharing, Viewing, and Downloading Trailers lor Children's and YA Books
T7I/S site was last updated April 25, 2012
Note: The Hnks to the trailers that are housed on 4shared are not ourrentiy funotioning properly. We are In
the process of reconstructing the site and apologize for the inconvenience. All of our trailers are stili
avaiiable on our You Tube Channel, as weil as on our School Tube page. Links to the traiiers on these sites
can be found by utiiizing our r '
For Information about hosting a hands-on workshop on creating book traiiers, click here!
words into images. Music and images con-
vey mood and tone. Sometimes there are
words and dialogue included; however, the
book trailer is often more akin to a silent
movie. Images appear, fade, and are re-
placed by other images. Book trailers must
take care, however, not to give too much
away. Like the best booktalks, book trailers
should be relatively shori.
Like many, we have some favorite book
trailers. MacMillan's professionally pro-
duced book trailer for Lane Smith's It's a
Book is just about perfect. It gives poten-
tial readers a good introduction to the key
players in this picture book for older read-
ers as well an idea of the conflict that is at
the center of the story. (Donalyn Miller, the
"Book Whisperer," read it aloud the first day
of school last year to her middle school stu-
dents). The trailer is also humorous, an im-
poriant aspect since this lets readers know
the tone of It's a Book. Go to http://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=x4BK_2VULCU to
watch the trailer. Another humorous book
trailer is the one produced by Guys Read
for their collection of humorous pieces,
Guys Read: Funny Business. The vari-
ous contributors to the anthology appear
in the trailer, each telling a piece of the
same joke. See it at http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=DCd9ln6Y5Cs). An interest-
ing trailer to share with readers might be
one produced by AlA's Office of Intellec-
tual Freedom several years ago featuring
the most frequently banned books of 2006
found here: http://wvirw.youtube.com/watc
h?v=d3mGlp4GT6kftlist=PL75D3DA26E06
A208Aftindex=9ftfeature=plpp_video.
What are the benefits of book trailers?
Naomi Bates, who conducts workshops on
how to create book trailers, says "Book
trailers take what happens in a reader's
mind and display it like real-life. Trailers
can also do the opposite, and make people
who watch book trailers want to read the
book. Whatever side people sit on, be it a
reader or a non-reader, a book trailer will
fill that gap in a powerful, potent way. It's
a powerful tool for 21st-centuiy students."
How do you create and deliver book
trailers? There is no one approach to cre-
ating a book trailer. The availabilify of
technology and apps has made book trailer
JUNE 2012 2 7
creation a bit simpler. iMovie, Animoto,
and Movie Maker are all user-friendly and
handy for creating trailers. No matter what
app you elect to use, there are some fun-
damentals to consider when planning a
book trailer. In this list, we move beyond
the concept of "book" to anything that
might provoke a "reader" to consume. Let's
expand the idea of "book" trailer to any
worthwhile item of interest:
Select a book, ebook, video, blog, or
website that might not find its audi-
ence readily. Making a book or movie
trailer for The Hunger Games given
its immense popularity might not be
as essential as making a trailer for
an item that might be overlooked by
readers.
Watch other trailers to get a good
sense of what a trailer can do.
Build a storyboard or outline. What do
you need to include?
0 Title and author
0 Publisher and year
0 Cover image of the book or item
0 Pictures that convey setting, mood,
characters, and conflict
0 Words or narration
0 Music or soundtrack
Edit for "flow" and length.
Preview and revise as needed.
BEYOND BOOKTALKS AND
TRAILERS
Teacher librarians, classroom teachers, and
students can share their favorite books or
other materials by:
Using flip cams to record booktalks
and play them for other classes, on a
library Web page, or on morning an-
nouncements.
Visiting author and publisher Web
sites to see book and media trailers.
Sharing fabulous first lines of several
items to hook students quickly.
Teaching students how to create pro-
motions to other students.
Recording a promotion and play it af-
ter the morning announcements.
Making a podcast of a promotion
available on a library Web page.
Attaching QRcodes to books or media
for quick access to promotions.
Contributing to the library biog of
books and other media.
Creating a Facebook page for one of
the main characters from the item.
Displaying books made into movies
and TV shows.
Writing tweets as summaries of books
and other media.
CONCLUSION
Booktalks and trailers can coexist with stu-
dents' electronic devices and in classrooms
and the Learning Commons. Teresa Schauer
observes that, "the best book trailers are
just like the best booktalks. They basically
just give the jacket synopsis . . . only in-
stead of kids having to make the images in
their minds, the trailer spoon feeds the im-
agery and music to them." No matter who
is delivering the booktalks and trailers or
in what form they are delivered, the impor-
tance is enthusiastically sharing books and
multimedia students and educators love. In
this age of technology, we have repurposed
and transformed an old but effective idea
into one that will expand the idea of a lit-
eracy culture that will continue to pay big,
and even bigger, dividends.
Clark, R. C. (2009, February). Listening to
teens talk back: Teen responses to
booktalking styles. Voice of Youth Advo-
cates, 31 [6], 501-504.
Cole, S. (2010). Booktalking around the
world: Great global reads for ages 9-14.
Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.
Kadjer, S. (2008). The book trailer: Engag-
ing teens through technology. Educational
Leadership, 65(6). Retrieved from[Q: re-
trieval date?]: http://www.ascd.org/pub-
Iications/educational-leadership/mar08/
vol65/num06/The-Book-Trailer@-Engag-
ing-Teens-Through-Technologies.aspx.
Lowell, P. (2012). How to make a really
good book trailer. Retrieved from[Q: re-
trieval date?]: http://www.pamelalowell.
com/how_to_make_a_really_good_book_
trailer_33034.htm.
Mahood, K. (2010). Booktalking with teens.
Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.
National Assessment of Educational Prog-
ress (NAEP). www.http://nces.ed.gov/na-
tionsreportcard/.
Programme for International Student As-
sessment (PISA), www.pisa.oecd.org
Schauer, T. (2012). Book trailers for all.
Voice of Youth Advocates, 34(6), 557.
Valenza, J. K., a Stephens, W. (2012,
March). Reading remixed. Educational
Leadership, 69(8), 75-78.
York, S. (2008). Booktalking authentic mul-
ticultural literature: Fiction, history, and
memoirs for teens. Santa Barhara, CA: Lin-
worih.
York, S. (2008, August/September). Cul-
turally speaking: Booktalking authentic
multicultural literature. Library Media Con-
nection, 27(1),16-18.
Rosemary Chance is an assistant professor
of Library Science at Sam Houston State
University in Huntsville, Texas. She is the
author of Literature in Action: A Librar-
ian's Guide (2008) and co-author of Crash
Course in Eamily Literacy Programs (2012).
Follow her shori book comments on Twit-
ter at "texaspageturner".
Teri Lesesne is a professor in the de-
partment of Library Science at Sam Hous-
ton State University where she teaches
classes on young adult and children's lit-
erature. She is the author of several books,
including Reading Ladders (2010), and is
a fi'equent contributor to many journals.
She is in demand as a speaker and lecturer
and can be followed on Twitter @Profes-
sornana.
2 8 TEACHER LIBRARIAN 33:S
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