Book Report - What Do They Look For?

A book report is the primary tool for assessing a students' ability to read and comprehend.  The problem is most students dont know how to write a book report or what book report format to use. Nevertheless it is easy to search online and find a sample book report or other free book reports to get ideas from.

Book reports are a stand-by teaching method in middle school and high school.  Reading is important to any education program, and book reports, when handled correctly, show educators that students are reading books and, more importantly, the students are comprehending what they’re reading.

Of course, this teaching technique doesn’t always work flawlessly; every teacher can tell you that he or she has read more than one book report which was obviously written from the book jacket of the assigned book. 

Though I’m not going to write your book report for you, I should be able to help you write a good one, even if you haven’t quite had time to read the entire book. 

Though reading is important and should never be downplayed, sometimes it’s tough to finish the book that’s been assigned.  Maybe homework is piling up, or you forgot about the assignment, or you plain just didn’t want to do it.  Whatever the case, the book report still needs to be written.

When teachers read and grade book reports they are looking for evidence that you did, in fact, read the entire book that was assigned to you.  Depending on the grade level and the particular teacher, he or she is probably also looking for some evidence that you comprehended the events which transpired in the book.  This part is important, as it shows that you’ve gone beyond the words on the page.

Some rules are good to follow, whether or not you read the entire book.  Be specific.  Use character names and demonstrate that you know the relationships between them.  Refer to specific parts of the book instead of the work as a whole.  Also, talk about either how the book made you feel or what it made you think about. 

Perhaps offer up a similar situation that happened in your own life that parallels a situation in the book. Show that you understand the characters in the book and what they’re going through.

So how do you do all of this if you’ve read only part of the book, or none at all?  First find a summary of the book and read that to get a general idea of the storyline, paying attention to key characters and events. 

It helps to read a few online summaries if you can, since it helps you avoid complete plagiarism, since if you cut and paste text from websites you’re going to get caught.  Get an idea of the story and then put it into your own words, and use that, along with a few quotes pulled from the book, to construct your book report.

Go ahead search online for free book report or follow one of the reputable links included on this page and learn the art of writing a book report. There are hundreds of great book report ideas you can use, just choose one and follow the idea to its conclusion.

Resources

Book Summaries - discover how to write book summaries or just review book summaries of thousands of books online. A book summary is just a concise version of the book in question.

Books Club - it is important to join a books club to ensure you have access to a wider variety of reading material than you would normally be able to afford.

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