RAPPING WITH A DIFFERENCE: JUNIOR BOOK RAPS

Cherrol McGhee Book Rap Manager

This article for Insite ,September 1998 ,was based on a paper written by Cherrol McGhee and presented on 23 August, 1997 to The English Teachers Association of Queensland Inc. Annual Conference: E-Tech English and Technology - the Interface.

In April 1997, the first junior book rap on Stellaluna by Janell Cannon was conducted for 5 to 8 year olds. Prior to this time it was thought that book raps were only suitable for children over 9 years. Many teachers and students from particularly Queensland, but other Australian states and the USA as well, joined in the very first junior book rap. A lot of discussion took place, with the author and bat experts from around the world joining in. Its success has resulted in junior book raps becoming increasingly popular with teachers across Australia.

What is a Book Rap?

A book rap is a book discussion conducted on the internet under the guidance of a coordinator. Classes, groups of students or individuals can then discuss the book at its scheduled time. This discussion takes place via an email list set up, for that particular book which each class or group has to join. The coordinator posts a rap point in an email message to the book's email list. It is an open ended statement some aspect of the book, approximately one per week to which the students respond to and then they respond to others' responses. Each book rap usually has three or four rap points and a rap rap wrap up point which ends the rap. (McGhee,1997:31)

Guests for the book rap can sometimes involve authors, illustrators and other experts relating to the content of the book. These guests can now be directly involved with students by incorporating a chat session into the rap. As more authors and illustrators become involved there is a greater opportunity for students to discuss and understand the authors' and illustrators' work.

Book raps aim to encourage children to read for pleasure and to share their ideas with other children often relating these ideas to their own life or other books. As well book raps promote Australian children's literature, although books by international authors are not excluded. All email letters are archived and may be viewed from the book's web page.

What is a Junior Book Rap?

This is when the book discussion is aimed specifically at young children in the 5 to 8 age group. The book chosen is a picture book with some universal appeal for children of this age. The Stellaluna Book Rap was the first book rap to be specifically designed for young children in this age group.

How a Junior Book Rap can improve literacy skills

The structure of a junior book rap provides a real purpose to use literacy skills to communicate with other children in other classes.

Students with a little help from their teacher, who needs to set the scene for the rap, soon seem eager to participate. All book raps involve a lot of reading. First of all there is reading the book itself, then the welcome message and then the introductory messages from all the other classes who join the same rap. Following this come the rap points usually one per week and their answers and then the responses from other rappers.

Junior Book Raps involve a lot of discussion, shared reading and writing experiences including the modelling of writing responses by the teacher with the class. The flexibility of book raps and book rap points allow teachers to compose class responses or small group responses or class compilations of short individual responses.

As responses from other rappers are read it enables the children to consider the differing views of other children outside their class, in other schools and sometimes other countries and thus enabling them to learn new things by using email, the speed of which maintains their interest.

How to get started

Usually book raps are advertised on a number of lists including the book rap teachers list (br-teachers), the oz-teachers list about four before the rap actually starts.To see what book raps are coming up it is best to visit the book rap pages on the Oz-teachernet site.

http://rite.ed.qut.edu.au/oz-teachernet/projects/book-rap/index.html

From this index you will be able to visit the book rap calendar. Each book rap has its own web page and list which can be subscribed to from its page on the web or by sending an email message to that particular book's email list.

This subscribing is usually done by the class teacher or librarian. Some people choose to lurk and learn about book raps by subscribing and just reading the rap points and responses and not involving their students. This is usually when they have never participated in a book rap before.

The Coordinator of the Junior Book Rap

The coordinator is usually a class teacher but can be a librarian . The coordinator initiates a book rap by selecting a book, setting the dates for the rap, making up the rap points and the welcome message.

It is most important that the book has some universal appeal and some themes applicable to children. Stellaluna was excellent. The book has universal appeal across the world and many themes such as bats and birds, their similarities and differences, growing up, being orphaned, being different and adapting to change. Some of these themes were used as the focus for the rap points. A rap point must encourage discussion not just a yes or a no answer. Composing the rap points is the hardest part. Each rap point usually requires the students to respond to a variety of things remembering that the rap point has to motivate children to reply and then to respond to other children's replies. By using Bloom's Taxonomy (Achieving Excellence,1991:5) coordinators can compose rap points which encourage higher order thinking. Usually there are online mentors who can help with the wording of the rap points. Here's an example of a rap point.

Rap Point 2 (Stellaluna Book Rap) Why do you think mother bird looked after Stellaluna? Tell us about a lost or orphaned animal that you have looked after. Tell about any animal that you know which has been fostered by a different animal family. This could be from real life or a book or a film.

Contact is then made with the Book Rap Manager to get the rap on the Book Rap Calendar, to have the email list and its web pages made. Once the email list is made the coordinator can then advertise the rap on various teacher lists so that teachers can subscribe their classes to the email list. More details on coordinating are on the book rap site at:

http://rite.ed.qut.edu.au/oz-teachernet/projects/book-rap/how.html

In preparation for the rap other people such as the author, the illustrator and experts relating to the content of the book can be contacted to be part of the rap.

For example Stellaluna is about bats so I was able to contact Bat Conservation International and then write to their bat-line list and ask bat experts to help with questions from the children by joining our bat-info list.

Also the coordinator can make a web page, either for the students or teachers' resources or both. If you visit Hillview's Page you can see resources for teachers developed for the different junior book raps conducted over the past 15 months.

http://www.schools.ash.org.au/schools/hillview

On the set date the first rap point is posted by the coordinator to the book's email list. The other rap points are posted each week, finishing with the rap rap wrap up. In the early stages the coordinator will get some emails from schools who have joined late or are having troubles. Keeping in mind that this is still new and that classes and their teachers are still having their first email experiences, the coordinator has to be helpful. Preparing for a book rap and coordinating it through the rap can be a very rewarding experience personally and for the coordinator's class.

The Librarian

The role of librarian can vary according to how the librarian chooses. The librarian could act as the facilitator in collaboration with the class teacher. The class teacher would help with the reading of letters but some members of the class would be invited to write the response to the rap point and respond to other rappers under the guidance of the librarian. Alternatively the librarian could also do the rap with the class during library time selecting which replies will be shared. The result of this could then be a display of the rap map, replies and photos in the library or a page on the school's web site or a special activity as part of the rap rap wrap up.

If the internet access is only in the library then the librarian will be the person who collects and sends the mail. The mail can be printed for the class teacher to collect. Each class would have their own computer disk with the eudora or other mailing program on it and write their responses which would be saved to the disk and then taken to the librarian who can send the mail at a convenient time.

Librarians can also be coordinators because of their excellent knowledge of books and authors. They often act as mentors and encourage teachers to take part in a book rap.

Class Teacher

There are always many reasons why we can't do things as class teachers. There isn't enough time. The curriculum is too crowded. I don't know enough about book raps. My computer skills aren't good enough. But there are also a lot of very good reasons to get involved in one. It can be very stimulating for the teacher to learn new skills and to do something with their students that is different. Communicating with children outside the classroom often gives students more insight.

Book raps are very flexible and can be moulded to fit into the language program. The teacher decides on how to use it. The book rap can be integrated into a full unit of work or the steps followed as suggested for each rap point.The reading of responses can become part of shared reading.

Writing replies especially in the early stages, needs to be modelled and written as a group. The replies don't have to be long. Depending on the rap point sometimes short individual responses can be made into a group compilation for the response. Also the children don't have to write the replies on the computer as this can be very laborious for this age. The rap prep can do this.(an aide or parent or the teacher)

If you use the book rap as an introduction to the internet and emailing then you may include some short replies from each child. If you are doing the rap to extend the gifted and talented children in your class then train them to be the trouble shooters and to do the typing etc. The eudora program can be set up with nicknames and mailboxes to make writing and saving letters easier.

A book rap lasts for approximately a month to six weeks. You would have to devote a minimum of two language sessions each week to reading the rap point, responding to it, reading other classes responses and selecting some letters to again respond to. The whole class or groups or individuals can write these. The children do love to get a letter addressed to them individually.

Teachers can also create their own web site as a response to the book rap and have a link to the main book rap page for that book.

What a good way to develop your information technology competencies!

References

Crawford,J (ed.) (1991) "Achieving Excellence Units of Work for Levels P -8", Directorate of School Education, Victoria.

McGhee,C (1997) "Rapping With A Difference: The Stellaluna Book Rap" Access, Vol. 11, Issue 3 (August 1997)