What activities do you provide your students with after they have read a book on their own or together as a class?
Are the reading projects and responses that your students complete fun and engaging?
Do your activities focus on reading comprehension?
Are your students eager to use their best effort to complete their reading projects?
Do your activities focus on the writing process of writing a first draft, editing, revising, and then completing a polished final draft?
Do you use a grading rubric for you and your students to evaluate their work?
When your students have finished their projects, are they proud of their work and do they provide eye catching displays on your classroom bulletin boards?
Are your students eager to begin reading their next book so that they can start working on their next reading response activity?
If you answered "no" to any of these questions, then you have found the right place to find unique and engaging book report ideas to use with your students!
I have been teaching for 22 years, and I love teaching reading and trying to make it engaging and meaningful to my students. The reading response projects that I have created provide students with a unique way for them to respond to the books that they have read.
Whether you are a beginning teacher or an experienced veteran, all teachers are looking for new teaching ideas and teaching resources to promote reading and writing in their classrooms.
I have found a successful method of having my students respond to the books that they have read. Most importantly, my students love completing these reading response projects, and they do not even realize that I am also emphasizing the writing process and teaching vital writing skills at the same time.
What is the key that I use to get my students to love reading and writing about literature?
I use engaging and creative book report templates.
Each of my students have a reading incentive chart to record the number of books that they have read.
I display all of my students' finished projects in my classroom.
It really is that simple and most importantly, it works! My students are excited to read books independently and complete their fun reading projects!
Step 1: Provide your students with a variety of a unique book report projects. My student read a new book and complete a reading response project every 2-3 weeks. My students produce a polished final draft that is unique in style, shape, and content. Since my students find these response templates fun and challenging, they are engaged and interested in using their best effort to complete their project templates. My templates emphasize reading comprehension and the writing process, and they also include an art component.
Step 2: Give each student a reading incentive and sticker chart to record the number of books (or genres) that each student has read. All of my students are given an individual reading file. Inside their reading files are: their book, reading sticker chart, book mark, and their first draft papers. Students proofread and edit their first drafts on their own, with a partner, or with me before they begin on their final draft templates. When students have finished their final drafts, they receive a sticker on their reading charts.
Step 3: Display all of your students' projects in your classroom or in the hallway. I believe that every child's work should be displayed, not just the "best" ones. I have found that this motives all of my students to use their best effort. Because my reading projects are large and colorful, and I provide a free title banner for you to use in your display, it is easy to make a brilliant bulletin board display of your students' work! My students are proud of their final drafts and enjoy evaluating their own work using my grading rubrics. They love to see their projects displayed in the classroom, and they later place them in their educational portfolios to show to their parents with pride.
All of my reading response sets include the following components:
assembling directions
first draft writing response sheet (the line space on these sheets fits exactly with the amount of space to write on the final draft templates)
final draft templates
colored final draft templates of the project for you to use as a model
grading rubric for students and teacher to each fill out
five page colored banner to display on your bulletin board
most sets include bonus accent pieces for you to use as decorations for your bulletin board display
Book Report Sets That Are Available On Unique Teaching Resources:
To find a complete list of the book report sets that are available on Unique Teaching Resources, please click on the pencil below to go to the page that contains information about all the book report projects that I have created.
On this page, you will find a list of all of the book report sets that are available, as well as a short description about each project. If you find a book report that you are interested in, you can then go to an entire page devoted to explaining the components that are included in that particular book report.
On this page, you can also watch a video where I show actual examples of the book report sets that are available on my website.
Below are small graphical images of the variety of shapes that I have designed my book report templates in. Your students will find these uniquely shaped book report sets fun to complete, and each one contains writing activities related to the book report's shape, and the written responses required of students are different in each book report set.
These book report sets are currently available on Unique Teaching Resources. Please click on the links below to go to each book report set:
Be sure to check out my Reading Incentive and Sticker Charts that I use in my reading program. With these charts, you can track each student’s progress as he or she finishes reading a book or a particular genre. They are a great motivational tool to encourage your students to read books and to read across a variety of genres!
Examples of Book Reports:
I have custom designed a bulletin board banner to go along with each of my book reports. Below is an example of a banner for my cheeseburger projects.
Below is an example of a bulletin board display of my students finished cheeseburger projects. For this reading response project, students use each "layer" in their cheeseburger templates to write about a "layer of the book" that they read: main characters, setting, plot, conclusion, favorite part, and a drawing.
Instead of traditional and often boring worksheets, I have created writing templates that assemble into a variety of different shapes.
My reading projects focus on the writing process by providing a first draft worksheet for students to edit and revise before they are ready to publish their work into a polished final draft.
My students are proud of their finished work and their projects provide colorful and eye catching classroom displays.
Above: This is a photograph of my Main Character Vacation Suitcase Projects. For this assignment, students plan a vacation to take with the main character of their book. They select a country to visit and have to do research on their country. They plan the main sites that they will visit with the main character, what the main character will need to pack for the trip, and then they describe what they did with the main character during their vacation together.
All of my book report projects include a free five page banner for you to assemble and display on your bulletin board with your students' finished projects. This is an example of my school bus book report banner.
For this school bus project, students write and draw a picture about the beginning, middle, and end of their book. The doors of the school bus open up to reveal a character that your students have drawn.
In the three pictures above, you will see examples of the components that all of my reading projects contain:
assembling directions (template 1)
first draft writing worksheets (templates 2-3)
grading rubric (template 4),
final draft templates (templates 5-9)
color final draft templates (templates 10-14)
five page bulletin board banner (above)
Above is a picture of a bulletin board display in my classroom of my students' School Bus projects.
Each of my reading projects contain two versions to choose from: a standard American version and a second choice download of a UK English version. The differences in these two versions are very slight and have to do with some spelling and punctuation differences.
Sign Up To Receive Teachers Have Class: Free Monthly Newsletter
Each month I published an edition of Teachers Have Class that is sent out to the teachers who have subscribed to my newsletter.
In these newsletters, I provide free monthly teaching resources that you can download immediately to use. These free resources are not available on my website, and are only available to the teachers who have subscribed to Teachers Have Class.
If you are interested in signing up to receive your free monthly copy of Teachers Have Class, please fill in the form below.
If you have an idea for a reading response activity that is not listed above and you would like to see it included in my resources, please fill out the contact form below.
Thank you for visiting my website and I hope to see you back here at Unique Teaching Resources!
Sincerely, Heidi McDonald
Creator and Site Manager Unique Teaching Resources
More Examples of Book Report Sets That Are Available on Unique Teaching Resources:
What activities do you provide your students with after they have read a book on their own or together as a class? 
