Vents MagaZine Music and Entertainment Magazine
Related Articles
Even though teachers are well meaning by trying to get their students to understand literature, they sometimes accidentally cause their students to end up hating to read. A lot of times, students have a love of reading, but end up disliking it because they are given so many monotonous reading assignments such as book reports. Book reports can be a great thing if done creatively, but if they are just basic, they can get old and tedious and take the focus away from the actual reading part- the part that should be enjoyable. Here are some ideas to switch up book reports with your students in order to help them be more excited about reading.
Cereal Box Book Reports
Instead of doing regular book reports, you can do a cereal box book report. This is where students can take an old cereal box and create their own cereal to go with the book they just read. Let students get creative and spend time drawing the picture on the box. On the back is a cereal box activity that has to go with the book. On the sides are the ingredients that make up the book cereal, which would include the plot and characters. This is a great way for students to still learn all the parts of a book report but to do it in a new and exciting way.
Book Trailer
When you watch a movie trailer, they are captivating, yet still only telling just enough of the story to get you interested. This activity will be a fun change of pace for your students. You can have them create their own trailer as if this book will be made into a movie. Students can do their own acting, directing, and movie editing. They will have to truly understand the plot of the book and follow the storyline in order to create a trailer for it as well as understand the character development.
Book Club
You can get your students into small groups of about 5 students (or whatever number works for your classroom.) Assign each group member the same book, and give the groups time to talk about their book each day to discuss each chapter. This is an activity that will help students to understand how a book club works and to also help them to get excited about reading in general. If a student is reading a book, and knowing that they will have to share about it to a group, it will also help them with their reading comprehension. They will pay more attention to what they are reading and try to understand what is going on since they know they will be discussing the book in detail later.
Letter to the Author
After a book is read, have your students write a letter to the author. You can have students critique the book, share their favorite part in the book, tell what they would have done differently with the story, write how the book has changed them, or just thank them in general for the book. This activity will help students understand how to write a formal letter. Students will learn letter formatting, and addressing a letter in addition to their reading assignment. This will also help them learn that it is okay, and a good idea to write letters to people, even if they do not know them, if they have something important to say.
