Teacher Support

1. Teacher Support Reading and Writing Connections

2. Miss Nelson is Missing • Begin by reading and discussing the book Miss Nelson is Missing, by Harry Allard and Illustrated by James Marshall. • Although basic, a picture book is fun and interesting and gets the point across quickly. • Review with the students the book report essentials, such as the five W’s of a good book report, and other specifics. • The books genre, setting, time period, characters, etc. • Tell the students they are going to select their own book/novel and represent and present it to the class in different ways.

3. Class Discussion • List and talk about the various ways to represent a book report and/or written composition. • Inspiration diagram • PowerPoint • Written paper • Diorama (depicting a scene or scenes) • Also discuss the different kinds of written compositions. • Book report • Book review • Research paper

4. Example • Show the students your example. Starting with the Inspiration diagram and so on… • Be sure to point out the book report essentials and specifics! • For example, James and the Giant Peach byRoald Dahl. • Included are main characters, secondary characters, dangers along the way and settings.

5. Example cont’d. • Be sure to explain all the connections. • Make sure to create a key. • Color coding can be helpful

6. Assignments • Talk with the students about the unit activities they will have – going over each one. • Activity one: Inspiration diagram to take notes and build a summary of the book they chose. • Activity two: Using your diagrams, you will then represent and present your books using Microsoft PowerPoint. • Activity three: You will now write a review of your book. • Activity four: Using the internet, you will write a holiday research paper and present it to the class with visual aids. • Activity five: Peer review of holiday research papers.

7. Assignments cont’d. • Allow students to ask questions after you’ve gone over all the unit activities. • * Make sure to mention the technology (software) that will be used - we will be using the following software (s): • Inspiration • Word Processing • Microsoft PowerPoint • Internet Web Browser

8. Wrapping it up • Ask the students to save their assignments to their own disk. • Save each activity as that number (the number they’re working on). • Save as: Activity1, Activity2, Activity3, etc. • Each student will have a peer review session (activity five), and print their final papers before handing them into the teacher.

9. Reconvene • Reconvene as a class and discuss with the students the different ways in which their reading assignments can be written and the various ways to represent/present them as book reports. • Discuss the different kinds of written compositions. • Also go over the guidelines for writing a book report.

10. Assessment • During the discussion, ask the students the following questions: • What are some of the different kinds of written compositions? • What are some ways to represent a book report? • What will you include in your book report – specifics? • What is the difference between a book report, book review, and research paper?

11. Helpful Websites • http://www.ipl.org/div/farq/bookreportFARQ.html • For some general guidance on how to write book reports or book reviews, students can visit this site for links to related websites that are then listed. • http://lkwdpl.org/study/bookrep/#outline • Also on the above site, this is a student guide from the Lakewood Public Library website. • http://mr.brugh.20m.com/book_reports.htm • This is another teacher’s site, that provides other examples of ways to represent a book report. * Note: This link is to the teachers expectations of his/her assignment and is to be used as an example. • http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=236 • (Teacher site/article) Knowing the elements of a story aids students in their understanding of what is taking place in the book or novel.