If you walked into one of the Culinary Court ELA Kitchens during the past few weeks, you may have had a hard time figuring out if you stepped into a reading workshop or a writing workshop. That's because these reader-writer chefs have been busily writing about their reading, otherwise known as responding to literature.
As readers, we might write about our reading in a variety of different ways and for a variety of reasons.
Book Blurbs
Sometimes, readers write short, positive "blurbs" about books. The most common place you might find a book blurb is on the back of your chapter book or the inside flap of a picture book. These brief writings tell a very basic, incomplete summary of the book. Since the purpose of this text is to persuade readers to read the book, blurb writers try to make the book sound interesting without revealing too much information. Sometimes these book blurbs offer opinions and commentary on the writer's style of writing.
Book Recommendations
Since book recommendations are not found on the actual book, a little more information is needed. In addition to a general, incomplete summary (similar to the kind you find in a blurb), recommendation writers need to also include the book's genre, title and author. They usually also include other information about the book that readers might need to or want to know, such as whether or not it's part of a series or if it has won any awards. Book recommendations also always include positive opinions about the book. (Because if you didn't like the book, you wouldn't be recommending it, right?) Rather than just saying the book is good, though, good recommendation writers will also tell why it's good. Perhaps this book made them laugh out loud or cry when they finished reading it, wishing there was a sequel. Maybe there was a character inside that readers will really relate to, or look forward to seeing their defeat! Many popular books are filled with action and suspense, keeping the readers turning pages late into the night. Including these descriptions helps potential readers decide whether or not this book will be a good fit for them.
Book Reviews
A formal book review is much more detailed than a book recommendation. The main purpose of a book review is to explain someone's opinions about a book to people who have not yet read the book. Reviewers still do not include the entire book in their summary, but they will often go into more detail about certain parts of the book, like important relationships between characters or how the main character arrives in the major situation of the story. Because it's about expressing honest opinions, book reviewers do not always have only positive things to say about a book. In fact, many published authors have love-hate relationships with professional book reviewers; they know these reviews can make or break the success of their new books! A reviewer might find a book boring, predictable, unimaginative. They often have some positive and some negative comments about the books they review. Book reviews also offer much more commentary about the style of writing and message of the book. They also always include quotations (evidence) from the text to support their opinions and statements about the book.
Responses to Literature
Responses to literature are an academic piece of writing. That means the purpose of these pieces of writing is to demonstrate a deep understanding of a book to an audience that has also read the book. These writers include a complete summary, since they're no longer worrying about "spoiling it" for potential readers. Additionally, they go deep into the meaning of the book by discussing their interpretations of theme, their evaluations of characters, and the writers' craft and style. Quite often in responses to literature, writers will make comparisons and connections between books they've read, showing how their themes are connected or how two different authors (or the same author) can write about a topic in different ways.
Students, what do you like about writing about your reading? What do you find to be the hardest part? To which of these responses could you most closely compare Book Talks?
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