My name is Jennifer Gallé and I’m a grade 6 French Immersion teacher in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. I currently teach a great group of 20 kids. Like most classrooms, reading is a big part of our day. After lunch time, we have D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read), where my students pull out a variety of books and magazines to read.

I love this time of day, not just because it means a solid 20 minutes of quiet time (a rare occurrence in a class full of active eleven and twelve year olds), but because it allows me to catch up on my own reading. However, during these past few weeks D.E.A.R. time has meant something else to me. While the rest of the class continues reading quietly, I’ve been taking a different group of students each day to read a specific book. Although it’s certainly been an enjoyable experience, we’ve had a job to do: create honest book reviews for Edwards Magazine.

The idea behind the project is to allow students to go beyond a text they’re reading and critically evaluate it in the form of a book review. Publishing houses would send multiple copies of a book to be reviewed. When Christine (editor of Edwards Magazine) suggested the project and I mentioned it to the kids, they jumped at the chance. The books were ordered, and we all started looking forward to their arrival. We quickly learned that the mail comes to our school at 9:30, so by 9:31 one of the kids would be upstairs to check and see if anything had arrived.

To prepare for their role as book reviewers, the students looked up reviews online. They critiqued different ones, and decided what makes a good review, and what makes a bad one. They all concluded that good reviews didn’t give the ending of the book away (a major annoyance to them), and didn’t use too many unnecessary words. As the books arrived, we organized ourselves into five groups of four “book clubs.” As a group, we started the books in class, then the students went home individually to finish them. The book clubs then came up with a group summary of the book, and each student wrote his or her own review.

The kids didn’t need a lot of motivation to read. Although I gave them plenty of time to read their books, some rushed into class the next day to tell me they had stayed up late the night before to finish them. Many suggested the books to friends and relatives, who subsequently went out and bought their own copies. Others re-read their books a few times.

What makes this project different from a more traditional read and review classroom assignment is that I won’t be the only one reading it. While we were typing our stories up in the computer lab the students were running around to read the reviews of their friends.  Because the kids did not hold anything back when writing their reviews I predict there will be some pretty lively discussions as we check out them out online.

We teachers often tell our students to be aware of an audience when writing, and to adjust the language to suit who a student is writing for. The audience is usually an imagined thing. This time around, the students were very aware that a real audience would be reading their work; an audience that they don’t know, but who may or may not purchase a book based on their recommendation. It was a little intimidating, but it motivated the students to be more professional and driven.

The books we chose for the project are fairly varied. Some are already popular titles, while others have only recently come out. In the end, we chose:

• Swindle, by Gordon Korman
• Smile by Raina Telgemeier
• The 39 Clues by Rick Riordan
• 11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass
• The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade

For most of the students, this project marked the first time they wrote with a real world purpose. They didn’t just write for a teacher—they wrote for the public. Many of them have been asking me if they can write more reviews for Edwards during the summer. The best part for me as a teacher was to see how excited they’ve become about books, and how many of them have re-defined themselves as readers. One of the highest levels of learning is to be able to critique and analyze something, and this project has allowed the kids to do that in a fun way. It’s been a lot of hard work, but we’re loving every minute of it!

Editor’s Note: To read the reviews written by students at Elm Street Elementary, Summerside, Prince Edward Island, please click the links below. Please note that reviews will be added as they are written, so check back often!

• Swindle, by Gordon Korman
• Smile by Raina Telgemeier
• The 39 Clues by Rick Riordan
• 11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass
• The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade
• Wolves of the Beyond by Kathryn Lasky

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