Fun Assessment Ideas with Literature

During my last library services class, we started our first book where the students present the material. Something that I think is really important when you are covering a book from a different time period is to start off with a little background about what life was actually like. You could do a role-play or bring foods and games that were popular during that time. The book that was covered (in half) last class was The Voice that Challenged a Nation, which is about contralto singer Marian Anderson.

I really enjoyed this book, and when covering it with students, it is important to explain this style of singing and its popularity during the time period. A connection needs to be made, such as Marian Anderson could be compared to Idina Menzel today. Idina is not a contralto exactly, but she is a disciplined singer of our time period.

During one of my own English classes my junior year, we did a really fun project. We were covering the book Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott.

The project was to imagine Ivanhoe was being made into a new film, and you are in charge of creating a soundtrack to go along with this movie. You had to create a CD that had up to ten songs and a companion guide that described the scene and justification for the song chosen. This project assessed that students had read the book and knew the material because you had to describe the actual scenes from the book. When my group presents on The Narrative of the Life of  Fredrick Douglass, I hope to include this final assessment in our project. Taking this soundtrack idea further, I also will have a project where students are casting roles for the film. They will need to choose actors and actresses for all major roles and explain why this person fits the role. I think this would be a great type of character analysis in disguise.

As a teacher, I think it is important to create a fun and thoughtful assessment to accompany required literature. Also, students need to have a choice in projects they have to complete, so I hope to provide other fun ways to assess student knowledge on my group's novel!