12 Word Book Summaries – A Great Way to End our Book Clubs

Once in a while I get a surprise package of books at my house.  It honestly feels like Christmas.  And while I love my chapter books as I try to figure out who the Global Read Aloud contenders should be, when picture books show up it is an even bigger celebration.  So imagine my delight when Chronicle Books sent me 4 of their Cozy Classics.

While they are meant to be baby board books, I immediately saw great potential for them as a tool in the classroom.  Having just finished their self-selected book clubs, I wanted my students to somehow wrap up their projects while also doing some deeper analysis of the stories they had read and discussed.  Summarizing and analyzing are both skills we work on throughout the year, as is our public speaking skills.  Yet I did not want them to write a paper about their books, since I had had them do other writing throughout.  So this is exactly why the Cozy Classics were perfect; would my students be able to succinctly summarize their entire book in just 12 words?

This week I read War and Peace to my students and once their excitement died down I set them on their task; create a 12 word book summary that summarizes the entire book and then perform it for the class.  Throughout the week they would get a few blocks of 5 to  10 minute times and today they performed them.  The results were fantastic; students clearly had not only given a lot of thought to which words would best describe their stories, but also in how they should perform them for the class.

Here is one group performing their summary for Jennifer A. Nielsen’s A Night Divided, which by the way is a wonderful book to have in your classroom library.

Sometimes it is the smallest ideas that can have the greatest impact.

If you like what you read here, consider reading my book Passionate Learners – How to Engage and Empower Your Students.  Also, if you are wondering where I will be in the coming year or would like to have me speak, please see this page.

Filed under: being a teacher, books, Literacy, picture books, Reading, Student Engagement