Opening Up

Before I began to read the article “The Book Report, Version 2.0” on podcasting a report I was rather skeptical.  The loss of the traditional book report scared me.  Throughout my educational career I've had some pretty amazing teachers who taught me to completely adore strong sentence structure and correct usage of punctuation.  I think that is what caused me to be leaning away from the spoken book report, but in reading the article I opened my eyes to the other possible aspects of literature that are more strongly highlighted through this medium.  By having the students work in groups, collaboration is essential; this allows students to bounce ideas off of one another.  This transference of ideas may bring struggling students to a more concrete understanding of the story.  It will allow them to open up and begin a discussion of the literature.  In addition to heightened comprehension, this gives students a chance to express creativity while demonstrating their knowledge.  Another really cool aspect I never thought of is introducing music into the mix to set the mood of the novel; this could never be done in a written report.  By choosing appropriate music the students show that they not only understood the mood for the book, but can transfer it to another topic, which is crucial in interpreting literature.