Bringing it All Together....

Book trailers are the rage on LM_NT these days. They are everywhere - on Amazon, on Publishers Web sites and on Facebook. Some are professional, others are done by students. There is even a site devoted to how to create booktrailers. They are the 21st century version of that old chestnut The Book Report. I've seen a few here and there but I've not made one myself. I can't think of anything that dovetails as perfectly with what I do. Now I have a reason to learn how!

I don't know about the students but I am very, very bored with book reports beginning with "My book is about... and ending with...."Go read this book". I suspect most of the audience tunes out between the words "My" and "Go". Besides, these days, with all the reviews on Amazon and other places it way to easy to fake a book report. Back in my day you had to rewrite the blurb and sometimes the teacher caught on, but these days there are a myriad of choices to plagiarize from.

Book Trailers, which are highly visual actually require that the student read and understand the book, otherwise the pictures won't match what' contained between the covers . They are also short, sweet and to the point - something else that's important if the reports are to hold the interest of the audience.

Here is an example of one created by a high school student. The book is entitled Need. After viewing it, I'm not sure if I want to read that particular book but I know a number of students who would be all over it like white on on rice.

TEKS - gotta talk about TEKS....gotta make this educational. There are TEKS galore for Book Trailers - which are all about students reading and analyzing text.