I am always so grateful for all of the fantastic people who step up and help out with all things GRA. SO thank you to the awesome Beverly Ladd for spearheading the slowchats this year.
You may be wondering what a slowchat is. Well, it is a Twitter chat meant to last a week. That means that a class will host the chat for a week and send out questions using a specific hashtag, often posting a new question every day, and then moderating the chat for an entire week. Why do we love slowchats? Because we don’t have to worry about having all of our students on Twitter at the same time, it allows for all time zones to participate, as well as for great conversations to unfold at a slower pace.
If you want to be a host, please:
- Sign up on the Google sheet for the book you are reading.
- You can choose to co-host with another class if you would like.
- Please do not sign up for more than one week so that others can have the chance to host as well.
- Remember your week and then have students prepare questions.
- You or your class must have a Twitter account to host, but you do not need to have experience with this, have fun, make it your own and make it work for everybody.
If you want to participate:
- You or your class must have a Twitter account to participate.
- See the lists of hashtags so you know which one to use.
- During the week, answer the questions, ask your own and connect.
- You don’t have to sign up anywhere, just participate when you want.
Where are the sign-up sheets?
What will the hashtags be?
The hashtags will be the official hashtags followed by the number of the week, so for example for Wild Robot it would be #GRAWild1, #GRAWild2
The official hashtags are:
Mem Fox #GRAMem
Fenway and Hattie #GRAFenway
The Wild Robot #GRAWild
Long Walk to Water #GRAWater
A Monster Calls #GRAMonster
Any more questions?
Comment here or contact me
The Global Read Aloud 
Hi Pernille,
I’m so excited to participate again. I signed up to help with the slowchat for A Long Walk to Water for the week of 10/2, but I noticed the hashtag in your email is different from the one in the Google sheet. Could you confirm the correct on to use? Thanks!
Sincerely, Lisa Stringfellow
On Sat, Jul 1, 2017 at 9:30 AM Global Read Aloud wrote:
> Pernille Ripp posted: “I am always so grateful for all of the fantastic > people who step up and help out with all things GRA. SO thank you to the > awesome Beverly Ladd for spearheading the slowchats this year. You may be > wondering what a slowchat is. Well, it is a Twitter chat” >
I fixed it, the correct hashtag is #GRAwater
So sad there no more openings for Wild Robot. 😥
Then you get to participate rather than host
Just to clarify, if I am not signed up to host, I can still have my students respond through my Twitter account?
This is my first year and I’ve never used Twitter so please excuse my ignorance. I’d like to participate in the slow chat. I think my students would love this. However, all the spots are filled. Does this mean we can not participate or does it mean we just can’t host to ask questions? Can we get on and answer other classes questions? I’m not clear on what the purpose of the “hosting” is. Can you help me understand this a bit better? Thanks so much!
No apologies needed. The slots being filled simply means all of the hosting spots ave been taken, that means that they are in charge of asking the questions. Anyone can join using the hashtag and answer their questions.
I am in the same boat as Amy Green. As a newbie I’d like to participate rather than host. Hope that’s okay. One question, how do we know where in the world the other participants are from?
You won’t know unless they share that info. Please do participate!
I get the hashtags for Twitter, I have never been involved in a slow chat can someone explain the process?
Curious how many questions are usually posted each week. Thanks
It depends on the person running it