Transcript

The book talks assignment is a yearlong activity. A lot of the students in my class love to read, but they love to read about one specific thing. Some of them are non-fiction readers, some of them love novels, but they dont necessarily expand their reading very easily. Book talks really help get them excited about lots of different types of reading. 

At the beginning of the year, I explained to them what all of the different genres of books were. The students were organized into 4 different groups and once a week, a group would present a book talk. Students have a reading log where, all month long, they keep track of what books theyre reading. They categorize it by genre; they write down the date they completed the book, and then they choose one of those books to write a book talk. So theres a written component and then theres an oral component. The written component must include 6 different things: the title and author, a summary of the book, the main idea of the book, 3 new words or 3 word that they researched, something they learned from the book, and a recommendation. 

Throughout the year, the students started to get really get good at these book talks, so we started to make it a little more challenging. When they write about the main idea, they have to connect it to specific examples from the book so that we have a deeper understanding of that idea and when they talk about what they learned from the book, they have to make text-to-self connections. The book talks are read aloud to the class and then their writing is submitted to me. They do one of these a month. 

We encourage them to use a variety of books for their book talks. We want them reading newspaper articles, magazine articles, looking through non-fiction books, encyclopedias, online reading, novels, textbooks, any kind of reading. This helps get other students interested in books because they hear about stuff that they wouldnt normally explore in their own reading. So somebody does a book talk about a science topic and sees how interesting it is, and then they're drawn towards that topic to read about. 

Halfway through the year, I am always so impressed by the books that the students read, and they could see that, and they started asking me about what books I like to read. So they wanted me to add my name to one of the groups. So now, I also do a book talk once a month. This way students know what I like to read. 

One of the criteria of the book talks oral presentation is that its 5 minutes long. I thought it was important that the students actually see what this looks like. One of my favorite books is Wonder by R. J. Palacio, and a lot of the students have read that book so I wrote a sample book talk for that and I asked them to time me as I read the book talk out loud. I wanted them to see just how much writing went into a 5-minute presentation. That way, when they did their presentations, they already knew what was expected of them. 

My sample book talk for the book Wonder is behind me on the wall so if students are ever wondering or if theyve forgotten what a brief summary looks like or what the main idea looks like, they have an example always there on the wall for them to look at. 

So Ive demonstrated all of the different parts of the book talk. The first being the title and the author, the second is the brief summary, the third is the main idea, the fourth are the new words, the fifth is something theyve learned, and the sixth is their recommendation.