Booksnaps by SCS Grade 10

I visited the SCS Grade 10 ELA class last week to introduce them to a different kind of reader response: booksnaps!   The idea of a booksnap (inspired by Tara Martin) is to "snap" a picture of a page in your text which you reacted to and then respond to the text by adding emojis and a short annotation explaining your response.   Booksnaps are a fun way for students to show their thinking about a text.  Students explore their response to the text and demonstrate understanding when choosing symbols and a caption that reflect their ideas about the selected section. 

For this class, students began by reading their choice novels with instructions from their teacher to flag something significant with a sticky note.  The class discussed that a significant passage could be something important to the plot or something that caused a reaction from them.  Once students had some time to read, we introduced the concept of booksnaps by presenting a few samples (student-created and teacher-created examples).  Through examining samples, we set criteria for their work.  Then, it was time to get snapping!

Students returned to the passage they had flagged as significant or read on to find an appropriate section to "snap".  This group of students primarily used SnapChat to create their booksnaps.  (PicCollage, SeeSaw, Google Slides and other tools also work well for creating them.)  Once they had a picture of a page in their book, students added their annotation, emojis and the title and author of the text. When their booksnaps were complete, they downloaded their snaps (rather than sending them to one of their contacts).  Then, students submitted their work to their teacher via Google Classroom.  Their finished products were very well done!

The following are Booksnap examples from this great group of students.

(*shared with permission* thanks for sharing*)

Booksnaps : A Different Kind of Reader Response

In the last few weeks, I've had the chance to try out creating booksnaps with some PWSD students.  I've seen booksnaps before and I liked the idea, so when I had some ELA teachers willing to try a project with me, we decided to show students how to respond to a text in this way.

I started by revisiting these resources from Tara Martin and then I created my own booksnap (see below!)  Since our school division recently started using Google Suite for Education, I elected to use Google Slides to create mine because I knew students would have access to that tool.  I checked out #booksnaps on social media to see some samples, then watched this video on using Slides for booksnaps and finally got into the creation process!

What's so great about booksnaps?

I like that this kind of "reader response" allows students to respond to a text using visual elements such as clipart, emojis or bitmojis.

This is an alternative to traditional written reader response that allows students to share their ideas using creative visuals and short captions.

It can be a quick way for students to represent their connection(s) to a text.

Creating a booksnap provides an opportunity for digital design.   I think that it is important that students learn to present their ideas in a variety of formats, including digital ones!

Tips for Creating Booksnaps in Google Slides

Take a photo with a built-in camera using Insert>Image>Camera or take a photo with your phone or iPad and upload it to the Google Drive app, then use Insert>Image>Drive

Change your page setup to make it the size/layout you want by going to File>Page setup>Custom

Add a text box and format the outline colour and fill colour to customize your caption box.

Use the line tool to "draw on your image" by selecting the curve setting.

Use the line tool to add arrows by selecting the arrow setting.

Find copyright-free/public domain images and clipart at a website such as openclipart.org and use the drag and drop method to add them to your slide.   Select the image, drag it up to the tab where slides is open and drag it back down.

Save your creation as an image file using File>Download As>JPEG image or PNG image

Share your snap on social media with #booksnaps

More Tools for Booksnaps

There are lots of ways to create booksnaps.  Some other tools that work well for this type of response include:

• Snapchat (the original inspiration for these snaps)
• SeeSaw
• PicCollage

Student Samples

Thank you to the Miniota Grade 7/8 students and the BCI grade 7 students for sharing these samples! Each class got to view some sample booksnaps and create a criteria list for what should be included in their work, then they got busy creating these beautiful responses!