Summary essays are boring. They are tedious regurgitations of what students have read. Unfortunately, they are also an easy way to measure reading comprehension for many of my students, so as my students were wrapping up their readings of WWII literature circle novels I started to dread the upcoming summary activity.
Then I decided to try something different. I gave my students an open ended assignment. The criteria was simple: I want to see that you have read your book and understood it. You must include information from the beginning, middle and end of the book. Beyond that the choices are up to you.
In each hour we brainstormed possible project ideas ranging from the typical (timelines and PowerPoints) to the new (Minecraft). Then students started asking if they could combine projects together or add new twists to projects already on the list. Absolutely! That was my response every time.
The projects I’m the most excited about are the Minecraft summaries. The kids who are engaging in this challenge have already blown me away with their creativity. Most of them are recreating various scenes from their novel. They have sign posts highlighting the main details. One student is planning a mountain background with different scenes taking place in caves along a path. Another has a split path that takes the user down the various character paths. Another has added mods to the game that speak when they are clicked on and actually act out parts of the story.
Overall all they are still covering all of the same content but are a lot more motivated to complete the work.
