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#2732. Book Projects instead of Book Reports

Literature, level: all
Posted Wed Nov 6 19:57:03 PST 2002 by Evelyn M. Mallery (mal436@cs.com).
Will C. Wood High School, Vacaville, CA
Materials Required: Depends on what project you pick
Activity Time: Quarterly

I have 9th and 10th graders and they are given at the beginning of the year a sheet describing what they will be doing for their four book projects. They have to do all of them but they get to choose in what order. They are as follows:
1. CD cover that is 8" X 8" --- they have to design the front and back. They are required to title twelve songs with events that happened in the book. Then for two of the titles they have to write the lyrics for them. I make them write three verses with two choruses. These songs have to be about an important event in the story. I tell them that when I read the titles and songs, I will get a real feel for the book.
2. They have to write a magazine interview. They have to interview the main character asking all kinds of questions. I give them a list to get them started but they then have to come up with at least ten of their own questions. They have to introduce the character with some background, write the interview with the question/answer format and then have a closing paragraph.
3. They must make a movie poster about the book. It is an advertisement for the movie made from a book. They have to rate it, come up with review words from newspapers, a couple of quotations from the book, and they must use three different textures on the poster (it has to have texture--rice, noodles, sticks, plastic animals/people)...I tell them it has to have dimension. They also have to pick out who will star in the movie. Then on a separate piece of paper they have to give me the reasons they have picked these actors/actress for the parts.
4. They must make a three page comic book telling the story. It must have four rows per page. They can draw them, use computer graphics, magazines, etc. for the illustrations and use the 'bubbles' for the talking.

Now, I teach high school so you can fix this to work in your age group. I also require my high school students to do a reading log and design a T-shirt (on paper) that gives a very creative slogan and a design that goes with the main character. The choice (above), T-shirt, and reading log are worth 300 points. They have a whole quarter to do it and I have really enjoyed seeing what they come up with. It is so much better than the same old 'retelling' of the story.