The 7th grade students visit the Middle School Library once a month to select independent reading materials under in various genres or themes. The theme for November was Young Adult Realistic Fiction. Each student picked out a YA novel. After having read the novel, each student analyzed the themes and literary elements common to most young adult realistic novels in a written paragraph.
They returned to the library and shared their books in a speed-summary activity. In randomly assigned pair, one student summarized his or her novel first in 45 seconds while their partners listened. They then switched roles.
After the first round, new partners were paired up and students had to summarize the same books but within 30 seconds. The final challenge was to produce a summary that captured the most essential parts of the novel in 15 seconds. This is to prepare for their next assignment: writing a pithy summary for a free-choice book — fiction or nonfiction. (Inspiration of the next assignment came from the very short annotations for American Library Association’s Notable Books for Children Lists.)
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