How to Create a Book Review Dialog Assignment

Liven up your next book review assignment, and get better results as well, by turning the ordinary book review into a dialog assignment. Kids will have the opportunity to express their opinions about their reading, show off what they’ve learned, and interact with each other at the same time. As a bonus, students in your classroom will have a great opportunity to pick up some new ideas for books they might like to read themselves.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Pair students. Offer a list of choices and allow the pairs to choose their books together. You might present students with a list based on a thematic unit, a particular time period or any other specification designed to enhance what you’re doing in the classroom. For general lists of books, you’ll find a multitude of suggestions by checking out the excellent American Library Association site whose link is listed in Resources.

2. Allow students a specified time in which to complete the reading. Before they begin, provide students with a reading guide which lists the kinds of questions they will be using for the dialog assignment. Of course, this list will be dependent on your objectives, but any reading guide might include such questions as, “How interesting was the first paragraph of the book?” and “Which character seems to change the most during the course of the story?”

3. Explain to the students that rather than a written assignment, they will be presenting a dialog to the class; this dialog will take the form of a book reviewer interviewing an author. To be prepared, they will need to undertake a little research to find something out about the author as well as the author’s comments about the book.

4. Give students an opportunity to develop their interview questions; these questions should all be open-ended (not yes-or-no questions). They should then submit these for your approval. Make sure the questions cover such elements as author information, plot, setting, author’s purpose or theme, point of view; provide suggestions for areas of interest or significance not included in their original set of questions.

5. Tell students they will need to be prepared to both ask the questions and answer them. They may choose which one of the pair begins the dialog as the questioner (the book reviewer) and which one begins as the author. However, after a few questions and answers, at your discretion you will ask them to switch roles (a process which can be reversed again during the course of the interview). This tactic, of course, requires that both students will be fully prepared to take the part of the author.

Tips & Warnings

• Model the assignment ahead of time by asking a student to read a few questions you’ve prepared about a book you enjoy. The student will serve as the book reviewer and you will answer the questions as if you are the author.
• Explain to students about “spoilers” and ask them not to reveal the ending of a book.

Resources

• Source for book reading lists

Who Can Help Sponsored

• Earn your degree from industry experts at University of Phoenix. Take the next step in your career.