Links I Loved This Week: A Round-up of Online Reading 12/26/15

Brian Lawless describes the five required elements all classrooms need to establish a community of readers.

Everything Maria Popova posts at Brain Pickings is worth reading, but I’m especially fond of her annual book lists. Some surprising and lovely choices on her list of The Best Children’s Books of 2015 and The 15 Best Books of 2015.

A list of recommended podcasts by Travis Jonker and Colby Sharp? YES PLEASE! (Not that I need more podcasts to feed my addiction.) Also, very cute matching of booklove and podcasts here in the spirit of “If you like X, you might also like…”

Victoria Law reflects on her year of reading 50 books by women of color. So many amazing recommendations here!

Yet another knock-it-out-of-the-park post on writing instruction from Three Teachers Talk, this one by Shana on the 5 Non-Negotiables When Designing Writing Instruction–an excellent reminder for righting your course and tweaking workshop starting in January. And if you need a little more encouragement to reflect and revise your practices, read Jackie’s Writing My Wrongs: How I’m Learning from My Mistakes.

If your students aren’t reading, Pernille Ripp will help you find the solution in this list of questions.

I think I’m going to take the plunge in the New Year and challenge myself to read WAY outside my comfort zone by…. reading a romance novel!

I will probably lay off most reading challenges in 2016 (given my dismal rate of success in 2015) but Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge does look like a lot of fun.

I can’t think of a more powerful argument for the necessity of read-aloud than Carrie Gelson’s post on her Top Ten Read Aloud Experiences of 2015.