Teacher Refuses to Give State Mandated Assessment Test to Students

Given our recent reading of Lives on the Boundary and various class discussions we’ve had, I thought you all might find this article interesting (and inspiring?).

Lit Circle Presentations

Literature circle groups will present in class on Wednesday, April 23rd, Monday, April 28th and Wednesday, April 30th.

Presentations should be between thirty and forty minutes, and should involve all group members.

As I described them in class, these presentations are a kind of “book report” with pizzazz! They are a way for you, as a group, to pull together your thinking about the book and share it.

Some ideas are:

Acting out a scene from the book.

Interviewing each other about the book.

Interviewing a character from the book (group members act as characters)

Poster

Reviews (have groups member “duel” over the book, come at it from different perspectives)

Create a scene that didn’t happen from the book but comes out of your thinking about it.

Pass out key passages to the class, read them, and discuss.

Create a time-line of the book.

Create a panel of “experts” on the book (share information about the text not found in it)

Find others who have read the book and bring in their perspectives (videotaped, audio, written, etc.)

Create a new character for the book.

Collages representing various parts of the book or characters

Any type of artwork representing the book

An original skit based on the book

An advertising campaign from the book

Diary of a character

Letter recommending the book to an acquisitions librarian (if our library doesn’t already have this book, then actually send the letter!)

Interview with the author (real in print, audio, or video, or recreate one using group members)

Letters to or from a character (or between characters)

The story rewritten for young kids as a picture book

Party plans for all the characters in the book

News broadcast reporting key events from the book (or about the book)

Family tree of a key character

Gravestone and eulogy for a character

Puppet show

Board game (or other type of game) based on the book (remember it has to be accessible for people who haven’t read the text, unless the group members are going to play it in front of the audience)

(Some of the above ideas borrowed from Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in the Students Centered Classroom by Harvey Daniels)