Book Talk Ideas
*ideas not listed must be approved by Mrs. Downey
1. Create life-sized models of two of your favorite characters and dress them as they are dressed in the book. Crouch down behind your character and describe yourself as the character. Tell what your role is in the book and how you relate to the other character you have made.
2. Create a sculpture of a character. Use any combination of soap, wood, clay, sticks, wire, stones, old toy pieces, or any other object. An explanation of how this character fits into the book should accompany the sculpture.
3. Interview a character from your book. Write at least ten questions that will give the character the opportunity to discuss his/her thoughts and feelings about his/her role in the story. However you choose to present your interview is up to you.
4. Write a diary that one of the story's main characters might have kept before, during, or after the book's events. Remember that the character's thoughts and feelings are very important in a diary.
5. Give a sales talk, pretending the students in the class are clerks in a bookstore and you want them to push this book.
6. Build a miniature stage setting of a scene in the book. Include a written explanation of the scene.
7. Make several sketches of some of the scenes in the book and label them.
8. Describe the setting of a scene, and then do it in pantomime.
9. Construct puppets and present a show of one or more interesting parts of the book.
10. Dress as one of the characters and act out a characterization.
11. Imagine that you are the author of the book you have just read. Suddenly the book becomes a best seller. Write a letter to a movie producer trying to get that person interested in making your book into a movie. Explain why the story, characters, conflicts, etc., would make a good film. Suggest a filming location and the actors to play the various roles. YOU MAY ONLY USE BOOKS WHICH HAVE NOT ALREADY BEEN MADE INTO MOVIES.
12. Write a book review as it would be done for a newspaper. (Be sure you read a few before writing your own.)
13. Construct a diorama (three-dimensional scene which includes models of people, buildings, plants, and animals) of one of the main events of the book. Include a written description of the scene.
14. Write a feature article (with a headline) that tells the story of the book as it might be found on the front page of a newspaper in the town where the story takes place.
15. Write a letter (10-sentence minimum) to the main character of your book asking questions, protesting a situation, and/or making a complaint and/or a suggestion. This must be done in the correct letter format.
16. If the story of your book takes place in another country, prepare a travel brochure using pictures you have found or drawn.
17. Write a FULL description of three of the characters in the book. Draw a portrait to accompany each description.
18. After reading a book of history or historical fiction, make an illustrated timeline showing events of the story and draw a map showing the location(s) where the story took place.
19. Read a book that has been made into a movie. (Caution: it must hve been a book FIRST. Books written from screenplays are not acceptable.) Write an essay comparing the movie version with the book.
20. Create a mini-comic book relating a chapter of the book.
21. Make three posters about the book using two or more of the following media: paint, crayons, chalk, paper, ink, real materials.
22. Design costumes for dolls and dress them as characters from the book. Explain who these characters are and how they fit in the story.
23. Write and perform an original song that tells the story of the book.
24. Be a TV or radio reporter, and give a report of a scene from the book as if it is happening "live".
25. Design a book jacket for the book. I STRONGLY suggest that you look at an actual book jacket before you attempt this.
26. Create a newspaper for your book. Summarize the plot in one article, cover the weather in another, do a feature story on one of the more interesting characters in another. Include an editorial and a collection of ads that would be pertinent to the story.
27. Do a collage/poster showing pictures or 3-d items that related to the book, and then write a sentence or two beside each one to show its significance.
28. Do a book talk. Talk to the class about your book by saying a little about the author, explain who the characters are and explain enough about the beginning of the story so that everyone will understand what they are about to read. Finally, read an exciting, interesting, or amusing passage from your book. Stop reading at a moment that leaves the audience hanging and add "If you want to know more you'll have to read the book." If the book talk is well done almost all the students want to read the book.
29. Construct puppets and present a show of one or more interesting parts of the book.
30. Make a book jacket for the book or story.
31. Draw a comic strip of your favorite scene.
32. Make a model of something in the story.
33. Use magazine photos to make a collage about the story
34. Make a mobile about the story.
35. Make a mini-book about the story.
36. Practice and the read to the class a favorite part.
37. Retell the story in your own words to the class.
38. Write about what you learned from the story.
39. Write a different ending for your story.
40. Write a different beginning.
41. Write a letter to a character in the book.
42. Write a letter to the author of the book.
43. Compare and contrast two characters in the story.
44. Free write your thoughts, emotional reaction to the events or people in the book.
45. Sketch a favorite part of the book--don't copy an already existing illustration.
46. Make a time line of all the events in the book.
47. Make a flow chart of all the events in the book.
48. Show the events as a cycle.
49. Make a map of where the events in the book take place.
50. Compare and contrast this book to another.
51. Do character mapping, showing how characters reacted to events and changed.
52. Make a list of character traits each person has.
53. Make a graphic representation of an event or character in the story.
54. Make a Venn diagram of the people, events or settings in your story.
55. Make an action wheel.
56. Write about one of the character's life twenty years from now.
