GEN: Lesson on evaluating books (esp. children's)

[Rena Deutsch <renadeutsch@WORLDNET.ATT.NET>]

Help!
My principal will be doing my 'final observation/evaluation before tenure'
on Friday -- yes, this Friday!  She needed one more observation, so I
arranged to have the Children's Literature class in our high school come to
the library. (Read this as "this was not a lesson I would normally be doing
at this time of the year with these students")

As part of the work for this class, the students write and illustrate their
own children's books (picture books for younger elementary students).  The
students will be handing in their books on Thursday, and next Wednesday,
"judges" (teachers and some students) will evaluate their books, and first,
second, and third prizes will be awarded.

What I am planning to do with the students on Friday, and what I need help
with, is a lesson on evaluating books.  I thought we would start on
criteria for evaluating any work of fiction, and then specifically get into
evaluating children's books.   As the culminating activity, I thought that,
in groups, the students could come up with an evaluation sheet that could
possibly
be used for the following week's activities.

The lesson should be approximately 40 minutes.


Have you ever done a lesson of this kind or something similar? Do you have
any suggestions as to what I could do that would make this an interesting
lesson?

Any suggestions on articles or sites which spell out criteria for
evaluating books which I or students can refer to?

Any and all suggestions, handouts, tips, recommendations, etc. would be
greatly appreciated!  (The sooner, the better!!!).


TIA


Rena Deutsch, Librarian
High School for the Humanities
New York, NY
renadeutsch@worldnet.att.com

A and also make the lesson last 40 minutes?

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