On Tuesday 5th June, I had the pleasure of attending the year 8 F English class. The Book speed-dating lesson was fantastic as the boys had the opportunity to read a variety of books, briefly, before they were able to choose one of their favourites. It was great to see so many boys reading and it was encouraging to know that boys will read if provided the time. As Mrs Torpy stated “you will never be alone if you have a book to read.” I look forward to catching up with the class and talking about some of their books.
Thanks to Mrs Torpy for inviting me and a particular thanks to Thomas and Cameron for sharing their thoughts below.
Mr Ronchetti
College Principal
Book Speed Dating by Thomas Vella (8ENGF)
Today, in the Edmund Rice Learning Centre Mrs Torpy’s Year 8F English class participated in “book speed dating”. This entailed going around to three tables with a wide selection of books. The idea was to choose a book and then fill in a date card. The aim of this task was to find a book that we liked and then borrow the book to read it for the rest of the lesson. It was an interesting way to choose a book for the rest of the term.
Book Speed Dating by Cameron Mallett (8ENGF)
Today my classmates and I, taught by Mrs Torpy, participated in speed dating but with a twist. Weird right? The twist was that our dates were books, not girls! Don’t worry, we were not actually speed dating.
We sat at tables in the ERLC, where there were piles of books on each table, and we were given score sheets to rate our dates (books). The first thing we did was to get a first impression of the book from looking at the front cover and giving it a score out of three. The second thing we did was flirt but we didn’t really flirt! We read the blurb to get to know our book better before deciding if we liked it a bit more. Lastly, we got to know our date (book) more by reading the first few pages. After this, we wrote down if we would like a second date with the book. Then we repeated this process another two times and whatever book we liked the most we took it for a second date, but not actually a second date, we just took it to our class so we can read it for the rest of the term. All of this was done using bells to limit the time we had with our dates.
I hope one day you are able to experience speed dating with books, just like our class did!