Stargirl and Lit Circle Projects

4 Mar

I recently blogged about the literature circles I was doing in my classroom. Students were grouped in ability level and read three different books: Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, The Skin I’m In by Sharon Flake and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. We recently ended the unit and I wanted to share some of the amazing book projects they put together.

I gave students a choice for projects including making a fake Facebook, doing journal entries as one of the characters, a book cover, a collage, scrapbook, power point or Prezi presentation…and many more. There was even a choice to do an essay and one student picked that!

Here are some of the good ones:

A student’s Prezi– Prezi is a great tool for presentations if you haven’t already seen it. It’s more interactive than power point and allows you to zoom in, show relationships between ideas, and embed pictures and video. Take a look at the Prezi my student did on symbolism in Fahrenheit 451.

source

A student’s book cover Stargirl.

Awesome collage!!

The inside

Stargirl scrapbook

Awesome job!!

Facebook project

More scrapbooks

Students did a great job! I love projects like these to assess their understanding of a book rather than giving a pencil and paper test.

Tags: English, lessons, literature circles, middle school, projects, stargirl

Comments 14 Comments
Categories Lessons

14 Responses to “Stargirl and Lit Circle Projects”

quartercenturysouthernliving March 4, 2013 at 8:32 pm #

You have some really talented students! And it sounds like you are an amazing teacher!

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- Andrea @Pencils and Pancakes March 4, 2013 at 8:39 pm #
  
  Aw thanks!
  
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Alex @ Cookie Dough Katzen March 5, 2013 at 1:12 pm #

So cute- I like the Facebook project!

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- Andrea @Pencils and Pancakes March 5, 2013 at 8:03 pm #
  
  Thanks !
  
  Reply
cleaneatingveggiegirl March 5, 2013 at 8:54 pm #

I really miss doing these types of project! How nerdy of me! 😉

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Brittany March 6, 2013 at 12:56 am #

Wow this is great!! These projects are amazing.

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moderngirlnutrition March 6, 2013 at 5:33 pm #

What a great idea!! I liked that Stargirl book

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- Andrea @Pencils and Pancakes March 6, 2013 at 7:42 pm #
  
  Yeah he’s a great author!
  
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Jennifer@The Wellness Journey Blog March 6, 2013 at 10:16 pm #

Aww! I love seeing student projects! It’s one of the favorite parts of visiting my daughter’s school! All the projects in the hallways. 🙂

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Life's a Bowl March 7, 2013 at 7:41 am #

Aw, all of their projects look awesome! I miss that about teaching – seeing all of my student’s work… And the silly pictures they used to draw for me 😛

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di @ life of di. March 8, 2013 at 3:48 pm #

What great work 🙂 I love Prezi! It helped me so much in college and I feel like people were still trying to figure out what it was. Are the kids using it a lot these days?

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- Andrea @Pencils and Pancakes March 11, 2013 at 5:46 pm #
  
  I think most of my kids know about it….if they have to do a presentation for school or something they use it!
  
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Caitlin March 8, 2013 at 6:04 pm #

thank you for sharing this! the collages are awesome and i love that your class is reading 2 books i’ve read, stargirl and farhenheit. i loved the first and read it on my own but didn’t like the second probably because i had to read it in class and was made to do so…classic teen behavior!

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- Andrea @Pencils and Pancakes March 11, 2013 at 5:46 pm #
  
  A lot of books that I feel are good I probably hated because I was forced…
  
  Reply