Students as Book Critics
Accelerated Readers Review Works of Fiction as Intro to New Authors
Help Wanted: Classroom Book Critic
Asking students to critique a book is a great alternative to the basic book report. If students participate in the Accelerated Reader program or a teacher allows students to choose their own independent novels, a teacher could use the Book Critic presentation as another way to assess the students’ learning. Not only does this assignment assess the student’s understanding of the book, but it allows the student to present in font of the class. If the Book Critic job is rotated to every student once a grading period, classmates can find out about new reads from their peers.
Approving the Student's Book Choice
When a student is assigned the job of Book Critic, the student must create a brief book review (two-ten minutes depending on student age) for a teacher approved novel. The novel should be approved by the teacher or librarian or be one of the books in the student’s Accelerated Reader levels. Remind students to talk to the librarian about good books to review.
Book Review Criteria
When students are preparing to be the Book Critic, they should concentrate on two or more of the following aspects in the review:
- Plot
- Characters
- Setting
- Its believability
- AR level, if appropriate
- Point of the story or theme
- How the story affected the reader
- Overall value as a piece of writing
Subjective/Objective Book Reviewing
Remind student that an effective reviewer always backs up arguments with detailed support. Emphasize that students should try to select aspects that are of interest or ones that the student clearly understands. Also, if the student loved the book, it should be noted. If the book was hated, the student should tell why. Evidence of the strong feelings of love and hate should be included. If the book was just average, that should be explained as well.
Exemplary Literary Critiques
A rubric can be made by using some or all of the following criteria.
An exemplary Book Critic will do the following:
- List title and author
- Provide brief biographical information about the author
- Rate the book on a five point scale
- Back up ideas and opinions with specific proof or examples from the story
- Give the basic plot without revealing the ending
- Make the review easy to follow
- Write the review so it makes sense
- Use proper grammar and vocabulary
- DO NOT READ THE BLURB ON THE BACK OF THE BOOK.
Expand your Students' Libraries
Students will enjoy this if reading is an important part of the class. Not only does becoming a Book Critic get the readers to think about more than the plot, it involves the entire class. Students can give each other feedback from a rubric created from the items listed earlier on giving an exemplary presentation.
Note: if students are in the middle school or are not kind to each other, the teacher may want to preview the feedback first. Many students will pick up a book that they would not have in the past because a peer gave it a glowing review. In the teacher world, that is pretty cool.
