MINI LESSON: Creative Book Reviews

Creative Book Reviews

Overview: Students will write and share creative book reviews based on independent or assigned reading.

Objectives:

• I can produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
• I can evaluate and thoughtfully respond to independent or assigned reading.
• I can use technology to publish my writing and interact with peers at the class, district, and global level.

Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.4

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.4

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.4

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.4

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.4

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.4

Vocabulary:

• Book Review
• Target Audience

Materials:

• Book to review
• One to one Devices

Lesson Outline:

• Part One: Planning the Reviews
• If students are reviewing a book from independent reading, have them choose the book they wish to review for their target audience. If they are writing reviews based on assigned reading, let them know they will be writing and sharing reviews based on the assigned book.
• Students can choose any target audience: classmates, siblings, friends, the principal, the teacher, etc. and should keep that audience in mind while writing their reviews.
• Here’s a finished mentor post that you and/or your students can refer to during the review process (or you can write your own!)

• Part Two: Writing the Reviews
• Remind students of the difference between book reviews and book summaries. Students may wish to include the following in a review:
• Why did they choose to read it?
• Did they like the book?
• How long did it take to read the book?
• What made the story interesting?
• In their opinion, who was the most important character?
• A pro and con list to reading the book
• Would they read the book again? Why or why not?
• If students are responding to independent reading, have them create their posts from scratch, including a title and image of the book cover or other appropriate image within the context of the story. (Here’s an example by a student who reviewed Diary of a Wimpy Kid which uses the book cover as the image, while this student simply uses a general picture of books.)
• If your students are writing in response to assigned reading, it is faster to create an Idea (like this teacher) and have students create their posts by opening your Idea and clicking the blue “Write About” button.
• To help make the reviews more creative, direct students to the Literary Review gallery to get inspiration for something additional to write about the book they read. They will need to adapt the Ideas in the gallery to fit their stories.

• Part Three: Publish

• When students have finished, have them publish their Posts so their classmates can check out the awesome reviews they created!

Enrichment/Extensions:

• Students can use the audio feature to record their dialogue and even dramatize it! Read/Listen to a student mentor post with dialogue recorded- press the ‘play’ button at the bottom of the Post.
• Students can leave Comments on Posts from their classmates, offering positive feedback and/or suggestions
• Students can join and share their work to a Public Group related to the theme of their book (ie All About Sports or Fantasy) or a Group dedicated to books like Middle Grade Book Reviews. Besides sharing, they can read and comment on the Posts of fellow classmates and student writers.

Accommodations:

• Create a custom mentor Idea which uses the Description area to provide step-by-step instructions or links to instructional references (ie skill videos, visual aids, etc) specific to your class needs.
• Use the audio tool to record instructions when creating the Idea. You can read the Idea and Idea Description text out loud so students can listen and replay them as needed.
• Modify the lesson to include small groups and be sure to follow provided personalized accommodations based upon any student’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP).