Write a 750-word book review about Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life for an academic
audience.
How to Write a Book Review
Two websites to check out are
Writing a Book Review (Links to an external site.) (Purdue OWL)
Writing Book Reviews (Links to an external site.) (Indiana University Writing Tutorial Services)
Book reviews are a special form of academic writing. They have well-known structures with familiar
components. James Hartley of the School of Psychology, Keele University, UK, consulted with academics
about how to write the perfect book review and presents a checklist for book reviewers. Below is a link to
Hartley’s article along with a paraphrase of it.

Hartley, J. (2006). Reading and writing book reviews across the disciplines. (Links to an external site.) Journal
of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 57(9), 1194-1207. doi: 10.1002/asi.20399
Reviewers often use phrases that carry hidden meanings. Consider, “This is a surprising book” or “This is a
useful book for the library.” What these phrases really mean are, “This book is better than I expected” and
“This book is not worth buying for your personal use.”
When we are familiar with the format and are aware of hidden meanings, we know that we are reading a
particular genre – in this case, a book review. Essentially, we can always tell we are reading a book review from
the language and the structure that it employs. Writers of book reviews typically progress through four steps,
as follows:
They introduce the book by
Outlining the general topic
Indicating who the book is for
Placing the book in its field
Next, they often outline the content of the book by
Giving a general view of its organization
Stating the topic of each chapter/section
Then they highlight the parts of the book by
Selecting particular chapters or themes for evaluation
Critiquing the argument of the book
And finally, they evaluate the book by
Commenting on aspects of the content
Indicating how it meets the readers’ needs
Remarking on its format, price, and value
Making recommendations for purchase or otherwise
When we examine book reviews we find that most, if not all of these components are present, even if they are
not given in the order listed. Some reviewers, for example, like to start with items from Stage 4 – evaluation –
then move to Stages 1-3, and finally, conclude by justifying their original opening evaluation.
Two stages appear to be needed here. First of all, there is the preliminary reading and thinking about the book.
Sometimes this is done before putting pen to paper, but some reviewers start making notes from the outset. At
this stage then reviewers are concerned with selecting and thinking about information that will be relevant to
the four-stage writing procedure outlined above. Sometimes this will involve a trip to the library or to particular
websites to check up on the required information.

Sample Solution

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Identify and review the college and career readiness standards from your state (this may be the Common Core standards or some other set as defined by your state). Based on these materials, compose your post to address the following:

Discuss whether the standards are more academically and linguistically demanding than previous state standards that you may have experienced. Explain. If you have not experienced other standards, discuss the evolution of the standards with another teacher that has seen more than one set of standards set as the academic expectation.
Examine the academic language used in your state college and career readiness standards and language proficiency/development standards. How does the language affect the clarity and measurement of the intended learning?
Identify a neighboring state and find the standards used there (if you can, choose a state where you share a border or from which you frequently get new students). Compare and contrast to see the extent these standards are similar in the different states.
If your chosen state uses different standards than your home state: What are the implications of an analysis of this type for curriculum, instruction, and assessment for your ELs since many EL students move around from one state to another often and in the middle of the year?
If your chosen state uses Common Core as does your home state: What are the implications for assumptions that might be made about what happens in common ways? What are the issues for timing of the standards and the curriculum?

Sample Solution

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