C & R Chapter 7

Teaching Students to Write Book Reviews

This chapter focused on teaching students to write book reviews, including the phases students go through- from learning about book reviews are to actually learning to write book reviews themselves. This type of writing can be challenging for young children. During Phase 1 (as mentioned above), the students start learning about what book reviews actually are. This includes providing them examples of book reviews, going over the structure of what a book review should look like, and listening to and reading book reviews. Students are asked to share their opinions on the book reviews they've listened to or read. Phase 1 also includes an assessment designed to provide teachers with information about what the students already know about book reviews before the lesson started.  It will serve as a benchmark for later progress. Immediately following Phase 1, a second assessment is given to see if students can identify a book review out of two different texts.  Phase 2 involves learning to evaluate book reviews. Using a checklist, the teacher models to the students how to go through a book review and identify the necessary parts they learned about in Phase 1. Phase 3 is where students begin to write their own book reviews. They plan their book review, using the knowledge they gained during the first two phases of instruction along with graphic organizers. Then, with support from their teacher, the student begins to write his/her own book review. Post instruction assessments are given after the students write their book reviews. This post assessment is very similar to the first assessment so that teachers can track students progression throughout the instruction process. It is likely that students will require more than one cycle of instructions for book reviews, just as with most types of writing instruction.