Book Character Day Project: A Great Way to Finish the School Year

Book Character Day Project is a great way to finish the year creatively and with great fun. The purpose of the project is to instill the love of reading in students as well as improving their literacy skills by allowing them to express themselves creatively. It is also a great way for the students to choose their summer books as their friends’ recommendations are much more important and effective for this age group.

Take your students to the library and ask them to choose a book that they haven’t read before. Give them a month to read the book in their free time. Alternatively, you can ask them to choose a character from a novel they read during the school year. Then, give them the project task sheet in the attachment and two weeks to complete it to be ready for the day. In our school we use the hallway to conduct the project. We put tables in the hallway for the students to display their projects and decorate the hallway with posters on reading and student work (book reports, posters, etc. the students prepared previously during the year). Each class is given one lesson period to present their books and favourite characters. Their audience includes students from other classes at the same level, the parents, and the teachers. If you don’t have enough space in the hallway, you can do it in your classroom or in the library.

The task sheet in the attachment includes information on how to prepare for the for the day and how to present the project as well as the tasks. It also includes some photos from the Book Character Day we organized at our school. The tasks include two graphic organizers, preparing a digital word cloud, a bio cube, and a (fake) social media profile page for the favourite character, writing a bio poem, a journal entry, a letter from the favorite character to another character in the book, creating a poster with visuals and all the task sheets, guidelines on preparing a book talk . There are also three rubrics - for the letter, poster and the book talk and a self assessment form for the students to complete at the end of the project. You can also prepare a feedback form for the parents if you are going to invite them. The rubrics have not been graded. If you are going to grade this project, add the marking scheme to the rubrics before you give them to your students.