Reading Letter Guide

Literacy 6Central

Requirements:

  • Write your letters in a friendly letter format. This means that it has a date, is addressed to someone, every paragraph is indented, and has a closing signature at the bottom.
  • The letters should be AT LEAST ½ page long in 12 point font (about 15 lines) on Google Docs. If hand-written, it must be one full page.

Basic Format:

Date

Dear ______,

First paragraph: Include the title, author, and genre. Include a brief summary of the book (at the very least, the main character(s) and the basic problem (conflict).

Second paragraph: CRITICAL THINKING. This is the bulk of your letter. Look at the possible topics to write about for ideas. Choose one topic to write about and write abut it in depth! I want you to show your thoughts about your book, and after you give an opinion, tell me or your partner WHY!

Sincerely,

______

Possible topics to write about:

Reading Letter Guide

Literacy 6Central

  • Author’s choices in the writing (ex: why did he/she choose this topic? This format?)
  • Plausibility (Is this realistic? Could this happen?)
  • Description/detail (Could you visualize what happened? Feel it? Hear it?)
  • Dialogue (Was the talk realistic? Too much or too little dialogue?)
  • Setting (How did this affect the plot or characters?)
  • Conclusion (Was it satisfying? How could it be different?)
  • Comparison (with other books you’ve read, other books by the same author, comparing the author to other authors).
  • How you felt at a certain part
  • What do you know about the author?
  • How did you read this book? (Did you skip parts, re-read parts? When/why? Did you abandon it? Why?)
  • Predict (and give evidence for those predictions)
  • Did you connect to the book personally?

Reading Letter Guide

Literacy 6Central

Making it AWESOME:

1. Write thoughtfully – your entries should have your thoughts, opinions and critiques all over them! Do not simply summarize.

2. Don’t just make statements—ask questions, too! Remember, this is a written conversation.

Responding

  • When you write a letter, it is your responsibility to share your letter with him or her through Google Docs and await a response. If this person does not respond in a few days, please tell me.
  • As a responder, you should also write a thoughtful letter back, perhaps about your reading or in response to the writer’s reading. It should be at least 1 paragraph, and it should be in letter format, reflecting on the content of the received letter.

Reading Letter Guide

Literacy 6Central

EXAMPLE

April 1, 2013

Dear Lauren,

I have just finished reading the book A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park. It is a memoir, which means it is mostly based on a real life experience, but the author might have added some creative details. The main character is a 12-year-old boy who has to run away from his village in the Sudan (a country in Africa) because of a dangerous civil war in the 1980s through the 2000s. His name is Salva and he is an adult now who lives in New York. I like that we know he is okay now, because most of the book is about the terrible things that he had to go through to survive on his own through a lot of African wilderness.

My favorite thing about the way Linda Sue Park wrote this book is that she tells a Sudanese girl’s story at the same time and you don’t know how the 2 characters are connected until the end. You get a little bit of her story, then back to Salva, and she always leaves you wanting to know what’s going to happen next to both of them. I chose this book because I really like Park’s other works, A Single Shard, and When My Name Was Keoko. She has a very engaging but pretty simple storytelling style. All 3 of the books focus on a young person responding with grit and perseverance through very difficult challenges. I can’t wait to read A Long Walk to Water aloud to my students.

Sincerely,

April

April3, 2012

Dear April,

I’m so glad you liked that book! I am really interested in learning more about Salva’s life, especially since we just did the fundraiser for LifeStraw for kids in developing countries. I have also read When My Name Was Keoko, and I really like how the author shares real things that happened that not many people really know about.

Have you read Same Sun Here? This is a modernrealistic fictionbook that I just started. It has 2 stories too—one girl who just moved to New York City from India and her pen pal, an American boy living in Kentucky. I like when there’s more than one narrator, like the book Wonder. I definitely recommend both of those.

Happy reading!

Lauren

Reading Letter Rubric:

Presentation: ______

My letter follows the format of the friendly letter and all other requirements stated on the assignment sheet.

Comments:

Reading Comprehension: ______

My letter shows a clear understanding of the main characters, themes, and events in the story by providing appropriate details and explanations from the text. I also show critical thinking in the second half of my letter by responding to one of the topic prompts with depth and detail.

Comments:

Mechanics: ______

My work meets the Wydown Writer’s Contract.