Activity 1: Pick up the SOAPS assessment quiz and complete it. (15 minutes)  

Activity 2: When you are done, please pick up the Book Review Assessment package and read the assignment (it is worth 25 points, not 50) and supporting materials.  Begin drafting your book review today, and complete a typed draft by tomorrow. Note: Do not ask me for my opinions on your book.  This needs to be your book review.

Tomorrow, we will do some quick peer reviews, and you will polish your book review and hand it in on Monday, August 24.

Please, please do not plagiarize by either copying or paraphrasing and online review. Just provide an honest response that is truly yours. On Wednesday or Thursday of next week, you will hand it in to turnitin.com.

Homework: Complete a typed draft of your book review.  It should be approximately one and a half pages in length (definitely no more than two), 12 point font, Times New Roman, single-spaced, but double -spaced between paragraphs.

Nonfiction – Book Review Assessment

Summer Reading

Task: Your purpose is to write a review and acquaint your instructor with the book you chose to read over the summer.  You will discuss your book’s content and value.  To accomplish this purpose, you must:

(1)   report what the book does: what story/stories does it tell? What seem to be the writer’s central arguments and how are those arguments supported and developed?

(2)   judge or evaluate how well the writer presents the material, and defends the work’s central

arguments.

(3)   cite the evidence from the work that supports or illustrates your judgment /evaluation

(If it does not assess how well the book presents the material, then it may merely be a summary or an analysis of the work  and not a critical review. Further, your review must include supporting evidence so as to illustrate why your evaluation of the work is valid/justifiable.

You will have the rest of the period to complete your review.  This assignment is worth  25  points (not 50) and will be graded based on your ability to include the above specifications successfully.

Introduction.

*The introductory paragraph (or paragraphs) of your review should familiarize your

reader with the author’s purpose in writing the book and the book's contents. It should also indicate your over-all judgment of the book.

*Restrict your comments about the book's contents to a very condensed summary or an outline of the main points emphasized by the author; these comments should not be more than one third of the whole review.

Body.

*The body of your review should support your judgment of how well the book does what the author set out to do. To make this judgment, you should ask yourself if the author's explanations are clear, if the examples the author provides make the situations/problems/issues that are the focus of the work more vivid, relatable, or comprehensible, if the examples and analysis seems fair and comprehensive or biased and lacking depth, if important terms are clearly defined, etc.

*A book can be justly criticized if it omits necessary supporting evidence to illustrates the central claims its author is making, if is tedious and repetitive, or lacks readability.

*The important thing is that you quote or cite passages or segments from the book to support your position. If you think the author's writing style is particularly difficult or especially effective, quote a passage that is a good example of this difficulty or this effectiveness and explain why you think it illustrates your point. How/Why did that passage impact your opinion of the work as a whole?

Conclusion.

You might end the review by summarizing your reactions to the book. Consider the

following questions:

(1) Have your ideas been changed by the book? What ideas? Changed in what ways?

(2) How has your knowledge or understanding of your course's content been changed or enlarged by the book?

(3) Would you recommend the book to friends? Why? What types of people would most/least benefit from reading the book you are reviewing? Why?