Book Report for Middle School Text

Jonathan Friesen - Writing Coach

In this lesson from the new york times, students consider the ways author orhan pamuk uses objects as inspiration in his new novel the museum of innocence and create museum exhibits to reflect the themes, characters, and plotlines of works they are currently studying in class. Additional book report ideas gt gt 1 2 20 2016 web english teacher, all rights reserved. Web english teacher presents the best of k 12 english language arts teaching resources: lesson plans, videos, e texts, technology integration, criticism, and classroom activities. During my eight years in the classroom, i ruined at least two amazing literary works by assigning horrifically dull reading projects. My only hope is that those middle school students, whose enthusiasm i quashed, found another way to become passionate about literature.

peanuts raises some interesting questions about the value of reading projects. Does schroeder have a solid grasp on the concept of narrative? will charlie brown ever want to read another book? in middle school, we ask students to dissect texts and perform literary analysis. However, that does not mean that we have to limit how we assess their understanding of the books. Demonstrate understanding of the plot elements explore the role of tone and theme identify significant scenes or events and their impact on the story analyze a character and show an understanding of that character's motivations explain the relationship between the author's life and the story . Does it have to be an essay or book report? in the spirit of movie trailers, book trailers allow students to create video advertisements to entice new readers.

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Not only do these projects ensure that students have a firm grasp on the story's plot, setting, theme and main characters, but they also provide an opportunity to address persuasive writing as well as digital literacy concepts like copyright and publishing. In fact, imovie includes a set of pre built trailer templates, and ben schersten @benschersten created a great set of pdf storyboards for students to use in planning those projects. Both imovie and animoto allow students to focus on the content, as they greatly simplify the editing process. Barbara desantis' eighth graders produced a great set of examples in just two weeks after reading the giver. On a foggy fall day, i took my ninth graders outside to sit on the porch while i read the tell tale heart, tapping heartbeats on the deck and playing off the ominous weather. Leveraging the recording capabilities of most computers and mobile devices, students could explore the role of tone and sound by creating podcasts in the fashion of old school radio shows.

Audioboo or any other sound recorder, students can retell portions of stories, complete with background music and sound effects, to demonstrate their understanding of tone, setting and theme, as well as practice their reading fluency. My middle school students struggled with identifying and comprehending the concept of foreshadowing. By allowing students to recreate the story as a choose your own adventure tale, they have the opportunity to map out not only the original story but also a new one, identifying significant events or images and their impact on the story. Since inserted images can be hyperlinked to specific pages, students could create interactive stories. Jonathan wylie @jonathanwylie describes a similar approach in his blog using a combination of google forms and google presentations.

Either one of these options encourages students to identify significant moments from a book and illustrate their relative impact on the overall plot. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. In order to see whether or not your students truly comprehend the characters, encourage them to create a new scene and put those characters in the middle of it to take a walk in their shoes. Storybird allows students to choose from hundreds of illustrations in order to create their own stories. Students could show their understanding of characters by placing them in new scenes in order to reveal their motivations. They also conducted historical research into the life of elie wiesel to better understand the context of the book as well as the author's account.

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These studies turned into small research papers to which my students had hardly any personal connection beyond having completed an academic task. On the other hand, elissa malespina @somslibrary constructed a completely different experience for her students. At the culmination of their author study, her students created animoto videos which they then turned into auras with aurasma. To do this, students created trigger images representing either the author or a character from the book, which their classmates scanned in order to watch the videos.

In the end, not only did these students articulate the relationships between the authors and the stories, constructing an immersive experience for the rest of the class, but they also contributed their knowledge to a broader community. How many middle school readers have you seen who look as engaged as the children in this picture? if the true learning objective is to ignite a student's passion for literature and provide an opportunity to demonstrate understanding through a variety of modalities, then maybe it's time to move beyond the book report. Are you a teacher who keeps saying i wish i could find a way to make book reports more fun and interesting for my students ? education world offers 25 ideas that might help you do just that! in a recent posting to the teachtalk mailing list. One teacher shared an idea that incorporates some of the basic ingredients of a good book report and sandwiches in a lot more fun! her idea: book report sandwiches! the teacher commissioned a friend to draw slices of ham, tomato, and swiss cheese lettuce leaves a layer of mayonnaise, and a couple of slices of bread.

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