Written Book Summaries

This quarter, as a support for our writing work, readers are required to respond to FOUR of their required six books by writing a complete summary of the book after they've read it.  These summaries may be typed or handwritten, but MUST be a representation of the writer's personal best work.  We're looking for thoughtful, well-written, neat, and correct summaries.  All summaries must include the following elements:

1.  The book title (Remember!  Titles should be Capitalized and underlined or italicized!)
2.  Author
3.  Genre (Remember!  "Fiction" is NOT a genre.  Is this book fantasy fiction?  Realistic fiction?  A mystery?)
4.  A summary of important events from the story (problem and solution, beginning, middle AND end).  Or, if this is an informational text, include discuss all of the main or key ideas.

Still not sure what we're looking for?  Take a look at Chase's example.  This is a summary of a biography about Albert Einstein.

Chase's summary meets our expectations for a written book response.  While we are NOT expecting to see entirely perfect summaries (even Chase has a few opportunities for improvement), we are looking for evidence that the reader thoroughly understood the book (beginning to end) and can explain the book in their own words in a logical, organized fashion.  It is important that these summaries are written by the students themselves, and they take the time to edit and revise as needed.  Mrs. Koster and Mrs. Nash will be conferencing with reader-writers as needed to discuss their responses, using these summaries as teachable moments for writing.

Care for a piece of advice?  Chase shared with his class that, as he was writing his book response, he kept his copy of the 3rd nine weeks reading expectations next to him.  He repeatedly checked the directions for written summaries as he was writing so he could be sure he was working towards meeting the standards.  Way to go, Chase!  Thanks for letting us share your work!

Mrs. Koster and Mrs. Nash can't wait to read more great summaries soon!

Read, Think, Explain

When good writers answer questions about a text, they know they need to be thorough!  Since this is a form of responding to literature, the purpose is to demonstrate our understanding of a text (a.k.a. prove we're an expert) by informing our readers about our thinking.  We know these responses must be text-based, supported by evidence, and include lots of our own words to explain our thinking.  

Good writers also know that our responses should always include an answer statement.  Answer statements work like main idea statements, or topic sentences.  The easiest way to do this is to turn the question around into a statement.  For instance, if they question asks:

What is the theme of The Polar Express?

A good writer might begin their response like this:

The theme of The Polar Express is ____.

All of the other sentences in their response would be explaining how they know this is the theme, referring to details from the story and occasionally quoting specific sentences or phrases from the text.  

Reader-writers, could the RUPR help us respond to these questions?  If so, how?  

Reading Chris Van Allsburg Closely

This week, Culinary Court readers are revisiting some of the key concepts and important stories in our Chris Van Allsburg author study before we conclude our unit of study.

One of the ways our readers are revisiting a favorite story, The Stranger, is through a "close reading" activity.  In a close reading, readers revisit a text they've already read.  This time, readers are focused on looking deeper into the text to deepen their understanding in a predetermined way.  For instance, this week our readers focused on the effects of the setting in The Stranger.

In partners, students reread the story, looking for evidence in the text and illustrations to help them answer a list of guiding questions.  This time was also spent discussing with their partners the importance of the evidence they located.

After this guided conversation, readers took time to independently write a concluding paragraph explaining their thoughts and new understandings about this story and its setting. Was the setting of The Stranger critical to the plot?

Readers, what did you find challenging about this activity?  What did you find was the easiest part?

Writing About Our Reading

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?