As an English Language Arts teacher, my students loved this review lesson, where they identified the literary point of view of as many books on the in-class bookshelf as they could in one class period.
It gets them up and down, out of their seats, and it can be highly competitive.
Yes, I offered a reward to the team or individual student who correctly identified the highest number of books!
Students were told to choose any book from the shelf, read the first three pages, and identify the literary point of view it is written in -- 1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person omniscient, limited or objective.
They then used this worksheet, from EReading Worksheets, or a separate sheet of paper, to record the title and evidence of the POV from the text.
NOTE: You have to really KNOW the literature on your in-class reading shelf to be able to do this, and you'll need to stock it with a few select titles, to have a representation of 2nd person POV.
Whenever I did this, my students discovered lots of books that started in 2nd person -- the author or narrator speaking directly to the reader to hook him or her -- then switched to 1st person later in the text.
I limited student reading to just the first three pages. That's plenty of narrative to assess just the opening pages and classify the book based on how they believed the bulk of the text was going to be written.
In other words, if the opening use of "you" was purely to draw the reader into the text (a literary device, a hook), and was not sustained by the 3rd page or so, the book was essentially written in 1st person (occasionally a 3rd POV, but that was much rarer).
Here are a few recommendations for books for your bookshelf, written in 2nd person POV, which can be exceptionally difficult to find.
WARNING: I'm a Star Wars fan, so these are Star Wars heavy. But any Choose Your Own Adventure type book or series will work.
This gem by Adam Gidwitz is written entirely in 2nd person POV! I did a dance when I discovered it!!
Star Wars, The Clone Wars: Decide Your Destiny books. There are three, written by Jake T. Forbes, all written in 2nd POV.
The Way of the Jedi
The Lost Legion
Tethan Battle Adventure
And there's this Star Wars, Choose Your Destiny series of chapter books by Cavan Scott, as well.
An Obi-Wan & Anakin Adventure
A Han & Chewie Adventure
A Luke & Leia Adventure
A Finn & Poe Adventure
Most all "Choose Your Own Adventure" books are written in 2nd person POV and you can find them at used bookstores fairly readily, as they've been published and re-published since the 1970s.
On the CYOA website, you can even find board games based off the books that I'm sure a class would enjoy!
