One skill that students frequently have trouble mastering in high school is literary analysis. This is true for English and history classes. We get many requests for example book reports for these classes, so we decided to include some on the web.
All of these book reports are written on the same book, The Bondwoman's Narrative. I chose the book because it works well for history and English. This way students can see how a history book report differs from one for English. Also, it's a book students are unlikely to read for their own book report.
The book report itself is in plain text; my comments on the report are in italics, and paragraphs alternate between these two. I tried to address the most common problems we see in book reports.
Students who are just beginning to learn this skill should not feel intimidated by this report. I intentionally wrote it at a high level to give all students something to strive towards. Other than double-spacing the report, I did not address formatting issues here. My focus is on content and style. Student reports should include proper headers, etc.
Currently, I only have the English book report ready. I hope to have at least one of the history book reports ready before this summer. -Elizabeth Kamath
Sample History book report
Another sample history book report
