One of my favorite blogs to follow is The Daring Librarian. Gwyneth Jones, also known as The Daring Librarian, is a middle school teacher librarian at Murray Hill Middle School in Laurel, MD. Her award winning blog has been recognized by Edublog and featured on the Wikispaces Blog. This year she was recognized as an innovator by LibraryJournal.com. Gwyneth's blog offers quality resources and ideas that could be adopted by any teacher regardless of their content, which is why its always at the top of the list in my Google Reader.
"Banish the Book Report!" was a presentation I came across on the Murray Hill wiki. The title alone intrigued me. As I continued to read, I came across Gwyneth's idea for a Twitter style book review lesson. Just like with Twitter, students are limited to 140 characters for their reviews. Students can only give a sample of what the book is a about, without giving away too much information. In addition, students will need to rate the books and provide potential readers with a shortened link to the Amazon book listing.
How could this lesson benefit your students? It will challenge your students on a higher level by encouraging them to focus on whats essential for a potential reader to know. Simply put, if you cannot get your point across in a concise message, is it really worth sharing at all? Communicating in a clear and concise manner is not only crucial for this assignment, but its a life skill! The information students share will need to be meaningful.
For written directions and resources on how to implement this lesson, check out Gwyneth's post. For more alternatives to book reports, explore "Alternatives to the Dreaded Book Report."
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