Active Bookmarks

Active bookmarks ask readers to consider a passage of text and provide a personal response.

Click HERE or on the image at the left to download a set of six different reproducible bookmarks. Each of the prompts requires students to summarize and/or directly quote some information from the text, then offer their own strategy-based response to it.

There are several ways to use these bookmarks, such as:

• Give each student several bookmarks to insert randomly into a text that has been previously read. Have them open the text to each bookmark and write a response based on the point in the text where the bookmark is inserted. (Be flexible about allowing students to change pages.)

• For a small group response, give each student a different bookmark to take turns responding orally.

• Allow students to choose one or more of the of the bookmarks as a prompt for reading response.

• Have students draw one or more responses at random to respond to a particular section of text.

TEACHER TIP

Instead of reproducing these bookmarks, simply cut blank paper into strips (four to a page, for example). Students can fold each strip in half and write the text reference on one half and the response on the other. List a set of response prompts and let students choose which ones they want to respond to.

Here is an example from Baseball Bats by Sharon Jennings: