EDF3306 Literacy Assessment 2:
Reading Comprehension
Questioning and critiquing
Learning activities to encourage critiquing
Here are some fun ways that students can critique books they have read or are reading in exciting and interactive ways as an alternative to writing traditional book reports.
Make a video clip about the book
Students could use a web based program such as xtranormal or GoAnimate.
These programs allow the user to type in text and then have cartoon characters read and act it out in order to make a movie.
Students could make videos such as interviews with characters in a book they have read, design conversations between two characters from different books, create a book review or an advertisement for a book!
Class debate
Have a class debate about the topic Will this book still be read 100 years from now? Assign half the class to be affirmative and the other half to be negative. Remind students to support their opinion with facts from the book. For example, maybe the book talks about technology which people 100 years from now will not understand or maybe the book contains key messages which will still be relevant 100 years from now.
Make a virtual bookshelf
Older students could use the website Shelfari to make their own virtual bookshelf.
Using this site, students can chose to share their book choices with you or other students, write book reviews for other students to see and sort their books into categories such as genre, topic or author.
This site also has the benefit of allowing you to log on and see which books students have read and the ability for you to recommend books to students.
Write online book reviews
Students could use the scholastic Share What You’re Reading webpage to write reviews of a book they have read and read reviews written by other students about the same book.
They could compare their review to those written by other children and look at the similarities and differences between them. Are there any patterns they can see. For example, what does your text selection say about you? Consider how to use that knowledge to build interpersonal relationships.
Learning activity to encourage questioning
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While reading a book or watching a video with your class, stop periodically to model questioning and critiquing skills out loud, involve students in this and make sure they substantiate their answers using evidence from the text or from their own funds of knowledge.
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Later, students could pose their own questions about a text to small groups of peers.
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Here is an example of how you could do this using the short Pixar film Big Buck Bunny.
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You could begin by asking questions, then gradually the students could start asking their own questions each time the film is paused. The film goes for 10 minutes.
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Please see the questions below for an example of how this could be done .
