What About Summative Assignments?

Types of Papers

To check for book comprehension a paper would be one standard way of completing an assessment to make sure students are meeting the common core standards required. There are many different types of papers however that can be used as a summative assignment for a book club.

Types of potential papers:

Close reading analysis
- Students can use a close reading analysis to show off their mastery of the texts they have been working with. It also gives students a chance to focus in on a literary device and really focus on explaining what is happing literally and figuratively in a chosen scene.
Research Paper
- Students can choose to do outside research of the author or an important theme in the book. This could teach students research skills, but could also expands their understanding of the text being read.
Short Story Parody
- This has slowly become my personal favorite type of paper. Students are able to create a parody of the text they have read by continuing the story or rewriting a scene from the novel. In doing this option, a author's note explaining the creative choices the student has made is suggested, as it gives students the chance to connect their work to the text they have just read.

Book Talk

A book talk can be a very useful assessment of the book clubs as it has multiple purposes. The students are able to explain the book and discuss important themes that they found, while potentially peaking the interests of other students within the class. For this assignment, it may be useful to have outlines of specific topics that a group has to cover about the book to ensure that students are demonstrating their mastery of the common core standards being used in the unit.

Discussion Leaders

This particular assessment would be done inside of the book clubs themselves most likely towards the end of the unit. The teacher could sit in on these discussion leaders and listen to the way in which students choose to lead their groups and the quality of discussion that is taking place. Each student would most likely be signed up well in advance for a day and the other groups would be working on something else while one book club is having a discussion leader presentation. The presenter could lead on any number of topics such as plot twists, literary devices, vocabulary, or analysis discussions demonstrating their understanding of the text.