Grade: all

#2840. Movie/Book Reviews

Reading/Writing, level: all
Posted Mon Apr 7 09:41:26 PDT 2003 by Peggy Kelly (pegkelly2000@hotmail.com).
Newport Independent Schools, Newport, KY USA
Materials Required: movie, book recently read, newspaper movie/book review, computer lab time, internet access, paper, p
Activity Time: 3 or 4 lessons
Concepts Taught: applying reading/writing to real-world application

Lesson name: Movie/Book Reviews
Students can use a favorite movie or book for this unit. If you need character information for a movie, there is one at IMDB.com. Several sites to post reviews are: Amazon.com, Borders.com, mediaplay.com, yahoo.com, and IMDB.com. These are a great way to get students involved in what it takes to support their opinions. The students also love the fact that they are "published" on the net and others might be reading their work.

Objectives: Analyzing Movie/Book and writing (posting) a review. Supporting opinions based on movie/book. Reading/Writing with a real-world purpose.

Procedures: Read movie/book review from local newspaper. View a movie or use a book recently read. Discuss sections/paragraphs of a review and content expected. Have student write a review, using full writing process - either a book or movie. After peer and teacher reviews and corrections, have the student type their review. Have the student copy and paste their review to one of several sites, using only their initials. Have them print out the page where their review is located to take home and for their writing portfolios.

Materials needed: movie, book recently read, newspaper movie/book review, computer lab time, internet access, paper, pencil/pen, signed permission (generally in the schools internet permission forms) for publication of items.

Evaluation plan: Checklist of participation and discussions, rubric for writing. Kentucky has a rubric to score writing portfolio pieces that can be found at the Kentucky Department of Education site. This could be adjusted to a 4 pt rubric.

Follow-up activities:
View different reviews already posted for the book/movie that they are writing about. How would you rate your favorite TV show? Are there other places or items that could be reviewed this way?