READING RESPONSE JOURNAL GUIDELINES
As you do your summer reading, keep a “response journal” in a notebook which will become your English journal next year. Your entries are to be responses to the literature you are reading. Write often, date each entry, and identify title and author.
Think independently and write imaginatively. Your ideas, opinions, and thoughts about your reading are important. This journal will become the basis for your English assignments during the initial weeks of school, and must be brought to class the first day of school.
For each book you must have at least four entries. Use the following suggestions as a guide. Your journal grade will be based on the quality of your entries as well as the variety and number of responses you write.
- Explain how you chose your book.
- Write about a memory or experience of your own that is similar to something you’ve read in your book.
- Write a reaction to something you have read. Describe your initial impression. Were you angry? Did something make you laugh or surprise you?
- Write an interview between you and the main character of your book.
- Illustrate a scene or draw a map or symbol that reflects your book. In a sentence or two, explain your illustration.
- Comment on the author’s technique: choice of words or the way he or she tells a story. Do you admire the way the author writes? Why or why not.
- Do you think the title of this book is a good one? Why or why not? What are some other possible titles?
- Imagine you are one of the characters in the story. Write a diary entry that reflects your thoughts and feelings about an event in your life.
- Discuss a memorable scene from your book.
- Write a letter to the author beginning, “I have just finished reading your novel, and I’d like you to know that . . .”
- Who else should read this book? Why? Who shouldn’t read it? Why?
- Make a connection between this book and another book, movie, or event. Look for similarities. Are there any differences?
this page last updated:
07-May-2008
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