Book Report Makeover: Bagging It!

Each week, Education World offers a new idea to help you "make over" boring book report formats. If you're looking for a way to spice up book reports -- and truly engage students in reading -- you've come to the right place. Check out this week's makeover idea

In this unique community service activity, students write book reports on grocery bags, and local stores promote literacy by bagging customers' groceries in the students' book reports.

Go to a local grocery store and ask for brown paper bags, explaining that students will write and illustrate book reports on the bags and then return them to the store for distribution.

Provide students with the following instructions for creating their paper bag book reports:

• On the top half of the bag, illustrate an event in the book you've read. (Emphasize that the illustration must be colorful enough to stand out against the brown paper bag.)
• In the middle section of the bag, write the title and author of the book.
• On a separate sheet of paper, write and edit a summary of the book you read. Make sure the summary is informative. It should not give away the ending of the book, but should leave the reader wanting more.
• Use a pencil and ruler to lightly mark lines on the bottom half of the bag.
• Copy the final draft of your book summary onto those lines.
• Write your first name, your teacher's name, and your school's name and address on the bag. (Students will enjoy getting notes from shoppers who get their bags.)

Advertise to let the your community know what your class is doing and why!

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