On the seventh day of Techmas: BookSnaps, an engaging active reading strategy!

What are BookSnaps?

A BookSnap is simply a digital, visual representation used to annotate and share reflections of any excerpt of a book or text.


If you are anything like me, you are always trying to find ways to balance motivating students to read while also challenging them to think deeper about their text. I love, love, love #BookSnaps because it helps students visualize their thoughts about their reading, makes reading more social and interactive, and helps students use technology beyond a consumption tool. Technology can be used with purpose and you can still have fun learning!

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Why use BookSnaps?

• to annotate and share excerpts of the books you are reading
• allows the reader to connect to an idea by creating a visual representation, which solidifies the text content within the mind and signals the brain to retrieve the idea from memory
• diagram the rise, fall, and climax of the plot
• notate character conflict and reasoning
• explain the main idea, themes, or supporting arguments
• socialize reading
• highlight figurative language and imagery
• and so much more! Why stop at using this in an ELA classroom? Use it to explain concepts from across disciplines!

Creating BookSnaps is a SNAP!

*SnapChat - The original creator of #BookSnaps used SnapChat to take a picture of the text, used Bitmojis, the text generator, etc. to emphasize her thoughts about the text. This can be a pretty powerful tool to use and show high school students SnapChat and social media can be used for more than just poop pictures.

*Buncee - It's no secret that I love Buncee! When I read this blog about how to use #BookSnaps with Buncee, I was blown away again by how amazing this tech tool is. The best part is you can use this within the Google Classroom platform or SeeSaw, making this so much easier for students to share their work.

*Book Creator app on iPads - If you have iPads available, the Book Creator app is completely free and well worth the effort to install on the iPads. While it may take students thinkering a bit to get used to the ins and outs of the tool, this is a great option to create #BookSnaps in the elementary or middle school setting. I've used Book Creator for all sorts of projects in middle, but had never thought about using it for #BookSnaps until this blog post. For the social media aspect, I recommend students sharing their creations with you and then posting through a generic library Instagram or Twitter account students can follow as most social media platforms are for 13 years of age and up.

*Instagram or Facebook allows for you to create "stories" where you can create BookSnaps, post to your live feed, and has the option to save the image/video for later.

*Students can post their #BookSnaps to Padlet (love the collaborative element here where students can interact with other classmates's thoughts), SeeSaw, Google Classroom, Edmodo, and more.

Example Lesson: Google Slides Template Document Analysis