Talking, Writing, and Thinking About Books: 101 Ready-to-Use Classroom Activities That Build Reading Comprehension

Kim Fahner teaches English and history at Marymount Academy in Sudbury,
Ontario.

This book features practical activities designed to engage students in
the reading process. The key areas addressed are talking and reading
aloud, drama, visual arts, writing, and research. The author shares her
activity assessment rubrics with teachers, so that the practical ideas
she presents can be realistically assessed and evaluated. A highlight of
the book is its collection of reproducible blackline masters.

Phenix offer teachers simple everyday options for broadening their
students’ exploration of language and literature. In one noteworthy
activity, the student is required to create a website for a character.
In the “TV Guide” exercise, students are asked to break the story
into a four-part mini-series and then describe and summarize the various
parts of the tale.

Talking, Writing, and Thinking About Books is just the sort of
multi-literacy tool that teachers should be striving to integrate into
their classrooms (in a variety of disciplines, not just English).
Although Phenix says that the book is geared to elementary students, it
would be useful to any educator, especially those who are trying to make
novel studies more exciting and interactive.