Reader Response Journal Topics

Please use this sheet to guide your responses to your readings. Remember to continue writing responses to your readings as the schedule dictates.

· Create a mobile illustrating themes or main ideas

· Design a book jacket

· Create a diorama depicting an idea, chapter, etc. from an article or book

· Develop an ad to sell the book or article

· Compare yourself to the author or figures mentioned in the book or article

· Be a critic and review the book/article for a newspaper, journal, or TV show

· Re-write the conclusion

· Compare and contrast authors and their ideas from several books/articles

· Get out the Play-Doh and mold a theme, motif, or resonant idea

· Write a diary entry for the author or person who is mentioned in the text

· Add another figure/theorist to the article/book. Show how s/he would react/interact.

· Research the setting/context for the book/article, describing additional details

· Using only color and shapes, try to capture the mood of a particular piece

· Research the author and present this information to the class

· Try to draw parallels between the author’s life and events/ideas in the article/book

· Write poetry expressing the ideas in the text or your response to them

· Try a found poem

· Create a collage depicting ideas or issues explored in the text

· Interview the author or main figure in the book/article and delve into additional details about the character’s beliefs and history

· Draw cartoons depicting significant ideas/issues in the text

· Write a letter recommending the text to a librarian or a friend

· Write a new experience, narrative, example, etc. that could be added to the book/article

· Write a “What if…?” addition to the text. For example, what if Holden Caufield met Melinda Sordino (Speak)?

· State reasons for liking/disliking the text

· Try a top ten list: “Top ten reasons I would invite Jane Austen to visit my class.”

· Write a letter to the author

· Try to think about the text as a body. What are the hands? The heart? The head of the text? Try a pictorial representation.

· Imagine the writing as a lump of clay. Detail what you would do with the clay.

· Describe the book/essay in terms of color. Which parts are red? Fuchsia? Chartreuse? Why?

· Build something (with pipe cleaners, lint, scraps, wire?) that represents a part of the text or your reaction to it

· Record quotes/images/passages you find important. Explain why.

· Web important issues/themes/ideas that arose

· Record all your questions—what you don’t understand, wonder about, etc.

· Stop periodically and write a paragraph or so about what you are thinking in response to the text

· Jot down stories or experiences you’ve had that passages in the text remind you of

· Have a “silent” conversation with someone about the book/article. (Two people share a piece of paper and write back and forth about the book.)

· Graffiti a large piece of paper. Scribble words and pictures that remind you of sections of the text.

· Create a visual map that tells the “story” of the text

· Create a timeline to organize major ideas or to connect the article/book with other texts

· Do a looped, focused, or invisible (typing on keyboard with the screen turned off—just write, don’t worry about grammar! Hooray!) freewrite in response to the text.

· Write a dialectical journal/T-chart (one side is quotes, the other side is your reactions/questions to the quotes)

· Complete a “before, during, and after” response to the text in which you write a paragraph predicting what you think the author will say. Stop midway through and respond to what has been said so far, and write again after completing the reading to sum up your thoughts.