Final Reading Responses

First. . .pretend it is still Thursday! Oops . .just a little late this time. :)

Then. . .here are some ideas to use at the end of a novel study. These ideas came from a colleague of mine. He said they were originally from a book of long ago (that I just can't site because we don't even know what book it came from!), but changed to suit his novel studies. These are great ideas to use instead of a "final test" as they cover the same kind of information, but are done in a more creative way.

This first one is called a "Title Summary." It obviously works better for books that have longer titles, such as Owls in the Family, by Farley Mowat. For younger grade levels you can also use this idea to write information about the theme you are studying or a math concept.

Similar to an Acrostic, this activity requires the student (or the teacher on a page--see below) to write the title of the novel vertically down the page. Then, each student needs to write a sentence about the novel that begins with each of the letters. After this is all completed, the students should have a summary of the events or themes in the novel.

Here is what a sample page might look like:

Here is a close-up of the instructions my colleague made:

The second idea focuses on the characters in a novel. Using the categories Intelligence, Honesty, Friendliness, Obedience, and Sense of Humor (or any other traits related to the novel your students are reading), each student needs to assign a letter grade to the character, and then under the comments section, they need tell why (give proof as to why) the character deserves the grade assigned. What events in the novel show the character displaying this trait? What was the character thinking about? Why would you assign a high or a low grade to this character?

When I have used this, I asked my students to write page numbers in brackets behind each "proof" if they could (which can also be used as an enrichment, because it was difficult to do!)

So. . .just two quick ideas to use in your novel studies or themes of study. Sorry, no finished pages to post just yet! Stay tuned. . .