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I requested some read aloud ideas to share with my teachers that were
not books.  I got some great ideas - thank you!!  Here is the HIT, as
promised.

Kristy Sandel, librarian
Mason High School
Mason, MI 
ksandel@mason.k12.mi.us 


Poetry? Edgar Allan Poe, Ogden Nash, even Shel Silverstein. The lives
column (back page) of New York Times magazine? Often an interesting
slice of life.

Last year I went to a reading conference by Mary Bigler, and she
recommended reading aloud things like joke books, one-minute mysteries,
Oh Yuck, the Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty (and similar titles),
trivia books, etc.  These are high-interest, low-commitment books that
you can jump in at any point, and they show students that reading can be
fun.  She recommended these for all grade levels, including high school.
 Good luck!

Newspapers -- something from the news or sports or editorial pages,
NEWSWEEK, TIME, poetry related to something going on (holiday, school
event).  Short stories.  Go on-line to some of the on-line journals
(McSweeney's comes to mind, because my son-in-law just got published
there).
 
How about Alden Carter's Love, Football and other Contact Sports or
Chris Crutcher's Athletic Shorts?

I know you said she prefers not to read novels, but bestselling author
James Patterson's novels have very short chapters (like 3 pages or
something).  If your teachers read one of his Alex Cross novels to the
students, they might inadvertently get some to get one of these books to
read on their own! Check out this blog where she has posted the first 3
chapters of I, Alex Cross (the whole chapter is one webpage!)
http://jamespatterson.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-next-alex-cross 

Ray Bradbury's short stories are always enjoyable.

I really like short story collections or the like that can be read a
chapter at a time. Gary Paulsen's My life in Dog Years another good
one!

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for, but I had a high
school teacher who used to read us stories from Chicken Soup for the
Soul before each class - we loved them!  They vary in length and, with
the variety of Chicken Soul book, there is a wide range of themes to fit
many students' different interests.

I would recommend This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of
Remarkable Men and Women and This I Believe II: More Personal
Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women to teachers who don't want to
read novels to students.

I wonder if NPR shorts would be a good place to look. I remember
swooning over The Highwayman, the old poem by Alfred Noyes. I still
think it could be  hit!

Any of the Chicken Soup stories are good

Try Read All About It by Jim Trelease

There are so many, many possibilities here!!  In Oklahoma we have
access to EBSCO Host and SIRS databases in all education institutions. 
One could simple search for fantasy fiction, sci-fy or other types of
fiction to find short stories.  There are so many Op-Ed forums that
would be great for our oldest students.  If you have interactive white
boards in classrooms then things can be projected for group reads.  I've
even found things in SIRS that include discussion questions following
the written text.

There are many websites with text from folklore (all types) and you
could easily pull one up at the teacher's desk and read from the screen.
 There would be no printing involved.

How about sharing the interactive sites out there with students.  There
are so many self-published sites available for our budding authors. 
Those fan sites invite publishing alternative endings for favorite
stories and continuations for our favorite characters.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126881.800-inside-the-mind-of-an-autistic-savant.html
 
Check this out. It's the story of an autistic savant. One of our
English classes is reading Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-time, and I was looking for research when I found this article.
Really fascinating!

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