Non-traditional Book Report: create trading cards!

Research shows that traditional book reports are out. You don't need to read the book to create a traditional book report.

Non traditional book reports, on the other hand, utilize technology and require higher order thinking (hint- kids must read the book to complete this kind of report!)

Here's an example of trading cards that students can make using the book American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang. I used the website http://bighugelabs.com/ and clicked on the trading cards option. I snapped pictures of my book using photobooth. I took the pictures with my computer and edited them slightly to crop out the edges. Keep some space around the face as the website does some cropping for you. After creating the trading card, I downloaded to my computer. For a non-graphic novel students could find pictures on the internet or use their own pictures. They would want to look for pictures that resemble how they see the characters as well as mirror their descriptions in the book.

My playing cards:
arrangement and order of playing cards tells a story