DIRECTIONS FOR COMPLETING BOOK REPORTS / ORAL PRESENTATION
Length: Your presentation should be between 5 and 10 minutes.
ELEMENTS OF FICTION
PLOT
Don’t confuse plot with the story. The story is everything that happens. Telling the
storing is saying/telling “…and then…, and then…, and then.” Plot is a summary that
deals with the significant action — why things are happening and how events relate
together. In telling the plot, we must leave out many minor details and focus only on the
main action.
CHARACTERS
We can’t have action without someone to do it. When we write/tell about characters, we
need two things:
Identity: We need to know the facts about a character to identify them by age,
gender, family situation, job and by social, religious or ethnic group.
Personality: Writers don’t usually tell use directly what characters are like. We
can make descriptive statements about characters, as we do with people on
everyday life, by observing what they do and by how their actions affect others.
We decide for example, if characters are good or bad, cruel or kind, generous or
selfish, honorable or dishonest.
PARTS OF THE REPORT
Your presentation should have three sections. It begins with an introduction, then
develops main points into a body, and ends with a conclusion. The heart of the
presentation is the body.
THE INTRODUCTION
Use the introduction to put the story into a wider framework that the audience can relate
to and to suggest the direction your presentation will take.
Title (Authors often suggest important ideas in the title of a book)
Author
Year published
Author’s biographical information (keep it short – just the highlights)
Type of book (Whether the book is mystery, romance, adventure thriller, science fiction,
etc. will help the audience relate to your presentation.)
Time/Era (Identifying a period — e.g. The Civil War — can aid in understanding the
presentation)
Place/Location (Locations are often associated with values and cultures that may be
central to conflicts in the book)
Theme (This relates to the important ideas or central human issues the book may have
dealt with. The introduction is a good place to suggest what the concern of the book is.)
Remember to always work the name of the author and the title of the book into the
introduction.
THE BODY
The main part of your report — the body — isn’t really different from other summaries
you may have done. It requires a beginning, middle and an end, and in order to keep
ideas in your own words and to stick to the main points, you need to work from an
outline. The body is built in three sections that blend plot with discussion of characters.
Beginning Situation Use questions to lead you to the important information. You need
to tell what the situation is at the start, who the main characters are, and when and where
the action is happening. You can’t tell the audience everything — stick to the main facts.
Every story has to have a conflict, and this you need to identify clearly. This might be a
problem that someone faces, a decision someone has made, or a desire that someone has
but one that hasn’t yet been satisfied. A key question to examine here is. What is it the
characters want and what is keeping them from it? In this section you must also
begin giving information to identify characters — age, gender, family role, position in
school or work, etc. You must also indicate significant behaviors and find words to
describe key personally traits. Try to come up with two or three words that really sum up
the person — generous or cheap, cruel or kind, honest or sneaky, hard working or lazy.
You don’t need to use a lot of words — choosing carefully is the important thing.
Development Once the story is set in motion and the main characters are introduced,
new problems occur and additional characters may be introduced. This is where you
have to be careful to summarize the main action. Include just enough to keep the main
ideas of the story clear, and to note any changes in the characters. Key question to
examine: How do characters go about trying to get what they want? What new
complications happen?
Resolution The third function of the body tells us how the story ends — how the conflicts
are concluded. The characters may have gotten what they wished for — or sometimes
they may have gotten what they deserved. You should at this point be able to decide
whether the characters have learned anything from their experiences and whether they
have changed in any way. A final key question: Did they get what they wanted, what
they deserved, or both?
THE CONCLUSION
This section is for your response to the story — this is where you bring the “I” into your
presentation. There are a number of different ways you can go in the conclusion,
depending on the story and your own reactions.
A story may have a real point to it (often called the theme) — something we can learn
about life in general and what we must learn to face or accept. This message might be an
individual one or for a problem our entire society faces.
Sometimes stories show how a specific lesson on the consequences of certain actions.
This might be something you have observed or experienced yourself, and therefore it
might have a personal application for you.
You might feel this story has a special application for certain age or interest groups that
you recommend the story to.
Also, if the book you are presenting on is also a movie, you might do a
comparison/contrast of the two media forms.
The above are just suggestions. You might combine one or more, or you may have some
other approach you wish to take in your response.
