21st century book reports
Teaching for 10 years 3rd and 4th graders. Accelerated Learning Model. Teachers Pay Teachers is an online marketplace where teachers buy and sell original educational materials. Are you getting the free resources, updates, and special offers we send out every week in our teacher newsletter? All Categories. Grade Level.
The 100 best books of the 21st century
Depending on the grade level, the report was to be either a simple one pager or up to ten pages of in-depth analysis.
And the book? In my experience, teachers gave us the chance to pick our own books to read without any sense of content focus. And I was never really sure why we had to read books and write reports on them. All I can remember is. I enjoyed reading books and would willingly spend hours at the local library. I knew exactly where the best books were in the school library. But reading a book just so that I could write a report took all of the fun out of it. I just never figured out what it was.
A simple task of 5th grade copy and pasting. Of course, I never actually read the book. The point was creating a book report. Select content that supports your instructional goals. Maybe a video clip of an historical event? A speech? Propaganda poster? Magazine or web article? A blog post? Can a kid write a book report on an image or photograph?
And my thinking right now is to not let them pick any book or text or whatever that they want. Kids will copy and paste.
Is it to gather foundational knowledge? Training them to source documents? Evaluate claims and interpret arguments? Compare multiple perspectives? Know why kids are reading. And be sure to tell the kids that. Provide a series of guiding questions that support your task. Sourcing a document? Then have them focus on author, audience, media format, and intent. You get the idea. Go beyond the traditional text format we grew up with and start thinking about using alternative options that kids can use to present their learning.
Be sure to have a clear rubric that you share with kids before they start and that you use after they complete their work. You do need to be willing to go beyond the traditional and begin using current tools and ideas. What works for you?
It is free, easy to use and requires you to tell a story! It also is now a download. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Sign me up! Thanks for dropping by! Feel free to poke around. Contact Me glennw essdack. Check out these handy products that can be used as instructional tools and professional learning opportunities in ways that work best for you.
The very cool Evidence Analysis Window Frame that scaffolds historical thinking skills and helps kids make sense of primary sources. We all remember the assignment. The dreaded book report. All I can remember is Read a book and write a report describing it. My solution? So should kids still do book reports? Do they have to look like the assignments we all grew up with? Probably not. A couple of things to think about: 1. Here are ten to get you started: Have kids create a resume of the main character or characters.
They can use information from the assigned material — you should also think about asking them to gather more data to include on their resume. Added bonus? You make the College and Career Ready people very happy with this sort of assignment.
Ask kids to create a storyboard for a movie trailer and the actual trailer. Movie Maker for Windows also works. Students can create a movie poster. Require them first create a written explanation and storyboard outlining why their poster looks the way it does. Is there a theme or topic or character that should be the focus of the poster?
Stick with the movie theme and have kids write a review as if the text or document were a movie. Develop a pitch for a reality TV show. Several weeks ago we asked a group of middle school teachers to read a collection of primary sources documents. We wanted them to get a sense of what 19th century western communities were like. Both the written and oral pitch required them to demonstrate that. Feel free to use this pitch template.
Ask kids think about the text as a mobile app. They can either write an app review or the app description. Maybe some sort of Five Photo Story Telling exercise? Maybe blow off the Instagram app but still require kids to use mobile devices to tell a story.
I once had a middle school student who struggled with text and noticed he doodled a lot in my class. Over time, he began sharing some of his artwork with me and it slowly started to sink into my very thick skull that this was my way in. From then on, his assignments consisted almost entirely of visual kinds of stuff. His graphic novel style work was pretty amazing. I learned. You might have kids try a strategy call Thought Bubbles to tell a story and to summarize text or documents.
This works great if you are having kids analyze images or photos. A high school teacher just recently shared a collaborative strategy he uses called Literacy Collage. This example is from a ELA classroom but you can adapt it to focus more on historical content and thinking skills. I think you could assign the same thing as an individual activity and then have kids work together to create a larger story.
This could be done using a paper version or online using something like Glogster. I love the idea of fan fiction. You know. Ask them to expand the story, explain what might have been going on in a different place at the same time, or develop back stories for historical characters.
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We all remember the assignment. The dreaded book report. Depending on the grade level, the report was to be either a simple one pager or up. This type of alternative book report also helps develop 21st-century digital skills! Book club questions. Some books have a section in the back with questions for.
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Book reports have been a staple in American English classes for decades. Students use them to prove their ability to think critically, read deeply, and express their ideas in an eloquent manner. Instead, English teachers need to approach book reports in a way that will engage and teach students just as much as the material the report is on.
10 great 21st century book report ideas
How do we get students to read more? And things get more complicated when we add in the next questions: how do we get them them like it? Most often, though, I found that when students are given the freedom to pick their reading selections and have guidance to help them find a book they might enjoy, the chances for success increased. It seemed so obvious--let students read what they want to and help them find things that connect with their interests. I wanted my students to enjoy reading, but then I asked them to respond to their books by creating a review.
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Fortunately, there are a plethora of alternative methods to accomplish the same goal. Take a look at these fun and effective alternatives to book reports and get your students and yourself out of the report rut.
Depending on the grade level, the report was to be either a simple one pager or up to ten pages of in-depth analysis. And the book?
