I've been working on compiling some ideas for creative book reports/story re-tell props/presentations. One idea that I came across are tissue box book reports (see Joy in the Journey for an example). I also stumbled upon some awesome pictures of tissue box monsters and other fun tissue box creations, but I didn't see anyone that combined the two. I love the idea of assigning a tissue box book report, because it will (1) stock your classroom with tissue boxes for the year and (2) be re-viewed each time a student grabs a tissue from it, while the box is in use. The book report examples that I found were a little lame, as far as visual appeal. I think that if I were to assign such a project, I would encourage students to decorate their boxes to look like a character, scene, or object from the story or related to the topic, and then add some of the information on the back or sides.
Jessica uploaded the project guidelines and rubric onto her blog post, but they could be easily modified to fit whatever task you assign to your students:
- Students could do a re-write of a beginning of the year story on the back of a tissue box. The box could illustrate a character or scene from the story.
- At the beginning of the year, they could be assigned to summarize something that was covered in class last year: a story that was asked in class, a topic that was studied, a favorite song, or a favorite L2 speaker. They could design a wolf to retell El lobo hambriento, a Gaucho to remind classmates about the famous Argentinian figure, a monster to re-tell El monstruo del armario, or Lady Gaga if she were one of the characters in Las novias de mi hermano.
- For Hispanic Heritage Month, assign a famous Hispanic American to each student and have them write a brief bio on the back.
- If you read a class novel at the beginning of the year, students could be assigned a character or scene from the novel to describe or re-tell with their tissue box.
- Each student could pick a different book from your class library to read and summarize with their tissue box.
- Each student could be assigned a word (a noun) to design into a tissue box. It could be review from last year or a word that will be learned this year. You could either use high-frequency words or words from a thematic unit (like school supplies, for example). On the back, students should write a student-friendly definition of the word in the target language and use it in a sentence or story. Whenever a new tissue box comes out, you could assign a free write to your class based on whatever the object is.
- Each student could be assigned a country and have to design a tissue box accordingly. Facts about the country would be written on the back.
What other possibilities can you think of??
Source: MyMakeDo.com
