Years ago when I taught Grade 6, I discovered book talks. There are plenty of book talks on YOU TUBE that students can look at. A Book Talk is similar to a movie trailer---it entices the reader to READ THE BOOK!!! Teachers Pay Teachers has plenty of book talk resources for teachers, and some are fantastic! Be sure they contain the success criteria and learning goals for a book talk. As a teacher, I hope that students will enjoy reading for a lifetime! Knowledge is power.
HOW TO MAKE A SUCCESSFUL BOOK TALK: Good authors always keep PURPOSE AND AUDIENCE in mind when writing.. Why does someone create a book talk? So other people will be interested in reading the book! Who will see our book talk? Our teachers, classmates, and friends.
Choose a book that YOU find interesting!!! Then...... 1. GRAB the audience's attention!
Use a good quote from the book
Use props, sound effects, costumes.
Get the audience INVOLVED somehow----ask a question, ask them to repeat a catchy phrase, get them thinking, etc.
Make a connection to something that is relevant to them.
2. Tell them a brief SYNOPSIS of the book, in an interesting way! Add pictures, music, props, costumes, and sound effects to make your synopsis stand out from the rest!!!
What is the title? author? genre?
What is the story about (the main message/idea)
Who are some of the characters?
Where and when is the setting?
3. Conclusion: Don't tell the audience the ending....fill them with SUSPENSE and CURIOSITY!
Do not tell them how the story ends....leave them wanting to READ the book to find out!
Give the story a rating.............your opinion!
TELL them to READ THE BOOK! Show your excitement!!!!
COLLABORATIVE BOOK TALKS One of the 21st century Learning Goals is to become an effective collaborator. Working in a team environment is a skill that we all must learn. I found an excellent book that some teachers and I will use to help students create LEVEL 4 samples of a book talk. It is called "Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Supermarket Gorilla" by Katherine Applegate. She also authored a book entitled "The One and Only Ivan" for Junior and Intermediate students. Disney produced that book as a movie.
To extend the understanding of this story, I found some great YOU TUBE videos that will help students relate to this world event. It will also help them form their own point of view on the subject of animal welfare.
I also want to show the students that they can make a career out of making book and movie trailers.......so here are the professional movie trailers that we can show them:
Some ideas for APPS and SOFTWARE that we have available to us to use for this project are:
Photostory 3 for Windows PowerPoint
Book Creator for Windows or MAC Google Slides
iMovie for MAC.
Other websites that we found and used are:
How to Draw Animals---I want to incorporate art into the project, and this is a great site for drawing!!!
Let's hope this works!!!! We are all bound to learn something from this! Take 1 begins on April 26.....
My Classroom Book Talk
My Grade 3 2016-2017 class created a Level 4 example of a Book Talk after we all read "The Chocolate Touch" by Patrick Skene Catling. It was brilliant! They really used their imaginations. After creating the Level 4 example, we created the Success Criteria and a Graphic Organizer that would help the students create their own. Some students chose to add videos to their book creator, so I cannot leave it on this page due to privacy issues. Parents at St Paschal Baylon School have password to my site can view the Level 4 example inSamples of Student Work