It's the last quarter of the school year and Independent Reading should be fun!

Your students have worked hard. Now's the time to let them pick a book they love and convince the rest of the class to read it over the long, hot summer. Yep, that's right. This quarter they'll have to "sell" the book they read to their peers!

You can pair this assignment with a presentation from your local librarian about your local library's Summer Reading Program, and encourage your students to read all summer. This year's SRP theme is A Universe of Stories.

You can also hand out lists of recommended summer reading titles for rising 7th and 8th grades, to help prevent summer reading losses. All the books I've reviewed on this site would qualify as excellent summer reading as well.

I always kept a 3-ring binder where I compiled student book reviews, the last option on the Reading Responses assignment sheet. Before students left on the last day of school, they had to pass the binders around (one for each class period), find at least one book they wanted to read over the summer, and write it on their last "exit slip" of the year, which they took home instead of turning in.

As always, be sure to provide examples of student work, so they know what you expect from their projects. You can peruse the Internet for teen book trailers, and spend some time in class watching them, as well, to give them idea of what a book trailer is.