About Reading Logs

There are many ways you can keep your reading logs. From the following suggestions, please select at least five prompts for each of your Reading Log.

    In your notebook and in your handwriting you are to log in the date, time and pages or chapters of each reading session. Your log should include major elements of the plot, consideration of characters including description and motivation, settings, themes, significant details and anything else you feel is noteworthy or significant including questions you may have about anything that seems confusing to you in that section of the book.

1.  Write about what your feelings are after reading the opening chapter(s) of the book. How do your feelings change (or do they) after reading half the book? Do you feel any differently after finishing the book?

2.   What emotions did the book invoke: laughter, tears, smiles, anger? Record some of your reactions.

3.   Sometimes books touch you, reminding you of your own life as part of the larger human experience. Are there connections between the book and your own life?

4.   Would you like to be one of the characters (acquire a personality trait)? Which of the characters would you become, if you could? Why?

5.   If you were the author, would you have changed the name of a character, or altered the location of a scene?

 

6.Does the book leave you with questions you would like to ask? What are they? Would you like to direct your questions at a particular character? What questions would you like to ask the author of the book?

7.   Are you confused about what happened (or didn't happen) in the book? What events or characters do you not understand? Does the use of language in the book confuse you?

8.   Is there an idea in the book that makes you stop and think, or prompts questions? Identify the idea and explain your responses.

9.   What are your favorite lines/quotes? Copy them into your reading log and explain why these passages caught your attention.

10.   How have you changed after reading the book? What did you learn that you never knew before?

11.   Who else should read this book? Should anyone not be encouraged to read this book? Why?

12.   Would you like to read more books by this author? Have you already read other books by the author? Why or why not?

Tips:

  1. The practice of keeping a reading log can work well for poetry and other works of literature as well (although the questions would be slightly different).
  2. If you ever get the chance, you might find it interesting to read the diaries, logs or journals that great writers have kept about their reading experiences. You may even be able to compare notes.

The above ideas are adaptedfrom http://classiclit.about.com/od/forstudents/ht/aa_readinglog.htm

Creative Ways of Keeping Your Reading Logs

  • write character reports in which you report on what you know about different characters at different stages of your reading
  • adopt a character where you work in groups focusing on particular characters and build up an in depth profile including extracts from the text
  • create a diary in which you make an imaginary diary by one of the characters at various key stages of the novel
  • construct a plot profile, often in graphic form, in which you record the key events of a novel. You can do this in pairs and share their profile with others in the class. In addition, students can develop excitement charts in which where important events are given an excitement rating. Plot profiles can be combined with excitement charts and plotted on a chart. The events form the horizontal line; the excitement rating forms the vertical scale
  • make reflective comments where you refer back to the text to identify developments and changes in action and characterization
  • construct flow charts and relationship charts (literary sociograms) in which you note key moments and relationships among characters at important points in the novel
  • write a poem using favorite descriptive words or phrases from a novel
  • redesign the cover of a novel with a particular audience in mind
  • list the ten most important things about the novel they are reading
  • draft a letter to the author or one of the main characters
  • complete a number of statements, for example: what I most wanted to happen was; what I really liked was; what surprised me was; what I most admired about the main character was, etc.
  • create a story board for a dramatic scene in the text
  • draft an advertisement aimed at a particular audience for the book you are reading

The above ideas are adapted from http://www.education.tas.gov.au/English/journals.htm

 

Create a Writer's Notebook
 Most authors keep a writers' notebook of some kind in which they jot down their observations thoughts and feelings, stick in interesting bits from newspapers and magazines, write down snippets of conversation they have heard, all of which provide a stimulus for writing. Students can do the same thing. Ask visiting authors to bring along their writers' notebook to share with students.

Many authors use their writer's notebook to engage in free writing. Free writing enables them to engage in the act of writing and lets thoughts and feelings flow. Although they may not immediately use the free writing, they can go back to it for inspiration at another time.

Suggest that students keep their notebook handy and record the date of each entry. In time, students will build up a treasury of ideas and experiences to use later.