April+Reading

__ Book Report Ideas __ You get to choose how you “tell” me about the book you read, but whatever you choose, it needs to equal 95 or 100 points. For a print-out version click on the link. 1. **Poster:** Make a poster about the book using two or more of the following media: paint, crayons, chalk, paper, ink, real materials.
 * 10 points **

2. **Collage:** Use magazine photos to make a collage about the story.

3. **Share Passage:** Practice and the read to the class a favorite part.

4. **Graffiti**: Write Graffiti about the book on a "brick" wall (your teacher can make a brick-like master and then run this off on red construction paper.) Cut your words out of construction paper and glue them on the wall.

5. **Character Map:** Do character mapping, showing how characters reacted to events and changed.

6. **Graphic Organizer:** Make a graphic representation of an event or character in the story.

7. **Venn Diagram:** Make a Venn diagram of the people, events or settings in your story.

8. **Dating Service:** Write an ad for a dating service for one of the characters.

9. **Ten Facts:** Create a "Ten Facts About [book title]" sheet that lists ten facts learned from reading the book. The facts, written in complete sentences, must include details you didn't know before reading the book.

10. **Glossary:** Create a glossary of ten or more words that are specific to a book's tone, setting, or characters. Define each word and write a sentence from the book that includes that word.


 * 25 points **

1. **Diary:** Write a diary entry that one of the story's main characters might have kept before, during, or after the book's events. Remember that the character's thoughts and feelings are very important in a diary. This needs to be at least 3 fully supported paragraphs.

2. **Sales Pitch**: Give a sales talk, pretending the students in the class are clerks in a bookstore and you want them to push this book to the customers.

3. **Sketches:** Make several sketches of some of the scenes in the book and label them, describing in 5 sentences what is happening.

4. **Book Review:** Write a book review as it would be done for a newspaper. ( Be sure you read a few before writing your own.)

5. **Character Letter:** Write a letter (10-sentence minimum) to the main character of your book asking questions, protesting a situation, and/or making a complaint and/or a suggestion. This must be done in the correct letter format.

6. **Reporter:** Be a TV or radio reporter, and give a report of a scene from the book as if it is happening "live".

7. **Time Line:** Make a time line of all the major events in the book.

8. **Character Traits**: Make a list of character traits each person has.

9. **Analyze Quote:** Choose a quote from a character. Write why it would or wouldn't be a good motto by which to live your life.

10. **POV:** Retell part of the story from a different point of view.

11. **Event**: Choose one part of the story that reached a climax. If something different had happened then, how would it have affected the outcome?

12. **A day out:** Pretend that you can spend a day with one of the characters. Which character would you choose? Why? What would you do?

13. **Descriptive Passage**: Read aloud the best example of descriptive prose found in the book. Write a paragraph explaining why the excerpt is a particularly good example of descriptive prose. The paragraph might include some of the adjectives the author used to set the scene.

14. **Setting:** did the story take place? When did it take place? Surf the Net to find five Internet sites that others might check out before they read the book, so they will know more about the book's setting or time period.

15. **Create a Card Catalog.** After reading a book, complete an index card with information about the book. The front of the card includes details such as title, author, and date published along with a two- to three-sentence synopsis of the book. On the back of the card, the student writes a paragraph critiquing the book.

16. **Resume Writing.** Create a resume for a book character. Include in the resume a statement of the applicant's goals and a detailed account of his or her experience and outside interests.

1. **Oral Report:** Prepare an oral report of 5 minutes. Give a brief summary of the plot, describe the personality of one of the main characters, and give a recommendation. Be prepared for questions from the class.
 * 50 points **

2. **Feature Article:** Write a feature article (with a headline) that tells the story of the book as it might be found on the front page of a newspaper in the town where the story takes place.

3. **Book Jacket:** Design a book jacket for the book. I STRONGLY suggest that you look at an actual book jacket before you attempt this.

4. **Be a Writer:** Write a different ending or a different beginning for your story.

5. **Compare and Contrast:** Compare and contrast this book to another. Or compare and contrast two characters. This needs to be at least one page.

6. **20 years from now:** Write about one of the character's life twenty years from now.

7. **Conflicts:** Stories are made up on conflicts and solutions. Describe three conflicts that take place in the story and give the solutions. Is there one that you wish had been handled differently?

8. **Write a Letter to the Author.** Write a letter to the author sharing your reactions to the book. Write in business letter form.

__1. **Interview**__ a character from your book. Write at least ten questions that will give the character the opportunity to discuss his/her thoughts and feelings about his/her role in the story, and then answer the questions as if you were the character. Each answer should be a fully supported paragraph.
 * 75 points **

2. **Movie Sales Pitch:** Imagine that you are the author of the book you have just read. Suddenly the book becomes a best seller. Write a letter to a movie producer trying to get that person interested in making your book into a movie. Explain why the story, characters, conflicts, etc., would make a good film. Suggest a filming location and the actors to play the various roles. YOU MAY ONLY USE BOOKS WHICH HAVE NOT ALREADY BEEN MADE INTO MOVIES.

3. **Comic Book:** Create a mini-comic book relating a chapter of the book.

4. **Sequel:** Write the plot for a sequel to this book.

5. **Picture Book:** Rewrite the story for younger children in picture book form.

1. **Sculpture:** Create a sculpture of a character. Use any combination of soap, wood, clay, sticks, wire, stones, old toy pieces, or any other object. A typed 1/2 -1 page character analysis describing the character and how this character fits into the book should accompany the sculpture.
 * 100 points **

2. **Miniature Stage:** Build a miniature stage setting of a scene in the book. Include a written explanation of the scene.

3. **Compare to Movie:** Read a book that has been made into a movie. (Caution: it must have been a book FIRST. Books written from screenplays are not acceptable.) Write an essay comparing the movie version with the book.

4. **Original Song:** Write and perform an original song that tells the story of the book.

5. **Newspaper:** Create a newspaper for your book. Summarize the plot in one article, cover the weather in another, do a feature story on one of the more interesting characters in another. Include an editorial and a collection of ads that would be pertinent to the story.

6. **Make game boards** (Shoots and Ladders is a good pattern), using problems from the book as ways to get ahead or to be put back.

7. **Book in a Bag:** Pick a can or a bag and decorate it with pictures conveying some of the major details, elements, or themes from the book. Then fill your container with the following:
 * **Questions** Write ten questions based on the book. Five of the questions can be about general content, but the other five must require more thinking.
 * **Vocabulary** Create a ten-word glossary of unfamiliar words from the book.
 * **Things** Include five things/objects/artifacts that have a connection to the story.