Hello my Omschooligans! Are you looking for summer enrichment or reading club activities or gearing for back to school reading lesson plans? Here are the Omschool Tree Fort, we are lifelong, year-round learners so we have you covered either way! Here's a unit of ELA English Language Arts lesson plans featuring reading response journal lessons and book report alternatives. These work best as group reader's workshop activities. They also work well for writer's workshop prompts.
Literature Reading Response Journal Rubric
Here's a template to make student reading response journal you can use in upper elementary, middle school and high school lesson plans. This is perfect for homeschool and homework.
- Give each student a single subject notebook (wireless notebooks work best).
- Use the same one for all lessons or start a new one for each unit or book genre study. In middle and high school, students should make separate response journals for longer books and more comprehensive literature studies.
- All written assignments are completed in this notebook (except a final project see example listed below as "book report alternatives.").
- Create a blocked calendar chart, like a bingo card, with 5 columns and 5 rows of squares.
- Label each column with one of these five main components of ELA curriculum:
- reading
- writing
- speaking
- listening
- multisensory response.
- Label rows with higher order thinking skills (HOTS):
- Recall/Comprehension
- Analysis (structure)
- Applications (text to text, text-to-life connections)
- Synthesis (text to new use)
- Evaluation (thoughts, feelings, opinions, rationale)
- Write 25 literature response activities for a month or of assignments.
- List one assignment per box.
- Leave room to write in specific assignment instructions and notes.
- Tailor activities to state objectives, and student ability.
- Photocopy (students complete similar activities for each book or genre studied).
- Attach to inside front cover of journal.
Personalize and individualize to student needs
Make it flexible enough for special needs accommodations and student learning styles.
- Give options. Let students choose 22 out of the 25 activities and do the last three for extra credit if desired.
- Students may complete assignments in any order.
- They can double up on slower days and skip assignments on busier days.
- Each assignment should take 30 minutes to complete
- two paragraphs of writing
- or 30 minutes of reading, speaking and listening.
Organization and management
- Assignments are completed in the notebook, labeled according by chosen activity and dated.
- Teacher initials completed activities in each box and note the points (in pen).
- Make notes or correction on the response page.
- Keep copies of each students chart for your records or keep digital copies.
- Each activity is worth 30 points:
- 18 points for content and quality
- 7 for mechanics (spelling, punctuation and grammar)
- 3 for neatness/clarity
- 1 for being on time (calculated at the end of the month)
- 1 for proper labeling. (name, date, class, period),
Reading Response activities
Here are over 25 reading response activities based on ELA model of of reading, writing, speaking, listening and multisensory response. Students complete response activities using HOTS (higher Order Thinking Skills: Recall/ comprehension, Analysis, Application, Synthesis, Evaluation. Write activities in a blocked chart attached to a single subject notebook. Students complete in the notebook. Activities cover spelling, grammar and mechanics objectives too. Here is a sample chart followed by a list of additional reading response activities.
List of reading response activities
Define 10 new words from reading.
Use 10 new words in sentences.
List two synonyms for each vocabulary word.
List one antonym for each vocabulary word.
Draw a picture or symbol to represent 10 new words.
Define words from teacher list.
Write tour guide of the setting.
Write a realtor's description for setting.
Draw a map of setting
Make up a board game for this book.
Draw a cartoon with 6 frames (or a manga style cartoon) about an event in the story.
Make up an Instagram page for a character.
Make a diorama about a scene from the book.
Write a haiku about the setting.
Make paper dolls of 3 characters.
Make a character web.
Draw a time line or time web to show 10 major events.
Describe main character in 10 adjectives.
Describe setting in 10 adverbs.
Write an Acrostic using a character name.
How are you like _____character?
How are you different from____?
List 10 books, songs or movies or that this story reminds you of?
Tell about any idea in this story that you have heard about in another class.
Write 10 trivia questions from the book.
Tell a friend 10 details about your book.
Listen to another classmate and ask 5 questions.
Draw or make a prop, tool, or artifact from the story.
List 5 websites where you can learn more about a subject you learned about.
What advice would you give to ___?
What would you do in this situation?
Give 10 alternate titles for this book.
List 5 new ideas you got from the book.
Draw a poster advertising the book.
Make a commercial about the book.
Write a book review.
Write an alternative ending.
Write a letter to the author.
Make up a board game based the book. Here's a sample for The Boxcar Children. Keep reading for the printable PDF game board and pieces.
Make up vocab quiz for this story.
List five symbols from the book.
Make up a costume for ___ (extra points to wear it in class)
Design a book cover.
Set the story to music (minimum 6 line song).
Invent a thing to help_____.
Make a craft project based on book.
Make up a 'Worst Case Scenario' for a book character.
Role-play a scene from book.
Write a short debate between two characters.
Perform debate with a partner.
Printables for The Boxcar Children game
