EdTech Insider

I learned how to bind books at a workshop recently, and I decided to share this with my students. This type of project started in 17 century as a way for people to stitch together chapters of books as they were released, creating the whole book in the end. They’ve been called “Frankenbooks” because so many different books/chapters could be stitched together. If you get a chance, look up “Chap Books”. Their history and examples are incredibly interesting, and the McGill Library has an extensive, free, digital library of chap books from history that you can access.

Recently, I have used the books to help students document and showcase their scientific thinking within our Sky Science unit. Within the book, they built out their understandings in relation to the curriculum. We discussed building diagrams, writing captions, headings, and titles, as well as other non-fiction text features (table of contents, index, glossary, etc.). The students stitched their books together and then built out the contents throughout the course of the unit. It presented a great assessment, as well as a great study guide as they prepared for their unit test/provincial achievement test.

I’ve added some examples below, as well as the rubric. I had the parents sign the rubric at the beginning of the unit, and then at the end of the unit as well. They were asked to sit alongside their child to evaluate their book. If I did it again, I would have used parents as a partner in the formative assessment, too… With a mid-unit check-in. Next time, I guess!