This project can be used at the end of a unit in which the students have read and discussed a work of literature that deals with The American Dream; here that is F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. It gives the students the opportunity to consider a fictional representation, examine real world statistics and facts about class and status in the United States, and draw their own conclusions based on personal interpretation, experience, and knowledge. The final product is a visual representation and written explanation of that personal interpretation.

This project can be used at the end of a unit in which the students have read and discussed a work of literature that deals with The American Dream; here that is F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. It gives the students the opportunity to consider a fictional representation, examine real world statistics and facts about class and status in the United States, and draw their own conclusions based on personal interpretation, experience, and knowledge. The final product is a visual representation and written explanation of that personal interpretation.

 Each student writes a one paragraph summary of a chapter of a book and then illustrates their chapter. It can be used for a book the whole class is reading so then all of the summaries are collected and bound together to create a “summary book” of the book read. This activity can be used for both fiction and non-fiction books in any subject and any grade, although this activity is linked to upper primary SOLs. This activity assesses reading comprehension and practices all writing skills. It also includes Art SOLs, and if you have students create their final products on the computer, then you would be incorporating the Computer Technology SOLs as well. If it is used for a non-fiction text in a different content class, then the activity would also cover those SOLs. It can be used for EL classes in middle school also. 

The goal of this activity is for students to learn how to tell a story in order to make a complex topic (such as global warming or ozone holes) easier for a reader to grasp. Students realize that the narrative impulse underlies even scientific and technical writing and gain a better understanding of the role of myth as a "science" of imagination that helps us to gain insight into human motivation.