How to prepare for your Oral Book Report:
1. Finish reading your book EARLY to allow time to prepare your presentation.
2. As you are reading, keep a list of things you might want to include in your presentation. You can put
these on post it notes throughout the book, or on a piece of paper you keep folded in the front cover.
Be an active reader to save yourself time later!
3. Go back through and gather as much information as possible about your person by answering the
questions on the back of this paper (also found in your explanation packet).
4. Decide what information is most important to be included in the presentation. Not everything in your
book needs to be mentioned to the class. What do you most want them to know about your person?
Choose those main points to be included in the body of your presentation before writing what you’ll
say.
5. Decide on a presentation strategy. How do you want to share this information with your classmates?
You have 5-8 minutes to fill – how will you do that without boring people to death or overwhelming
them with information? Refer to the organizations suggested in your explanation packet for ideas.
6. Create a rough outline of information in the order you think it should be presented. Start with an
introduction, then the main body of your presentation which will contain the most facts, and then a
conclusion that summarizes the main points of your person and brings closure to your presentation.
Don’t forget to include talking about/using your visual when planning your
presentation.
7. Write out your presentation on regular paper (or type it) as you’d like to say it. This is like a speech.
Do not rely on, “I’ll know what to say when I get up there.” No, you won’t. PLAN IT OUT!!!!
8. Transfer your information onto note cards, writing on every other line in large print (so you can easily
see it). Do NOT write full sentences on the note cards. Instead, write key phrases that will help you
remember what to say. If you write the full sentence, you will be too tempted to read right from the
card, which will make you look foolish and hurt your grade.
9. PRACTICE! PRACTICE!! PRACTICE!!! Stand in front of your parents, friends, stuffed animals,
mirror, etc., and read through your note cards to get a feel for your presentation. Your note cards are
only to be a guide, not read word for word!!!
The more prepared you are, the easier it is.
The information in the answers to these questions is great material that can be included in your presentation.
1. What is the most relevant and interesting information about the person’s life?
2. Why this person is/was important enough for a book to be written about him/her?
3. What are some of the personal events that helped or hurt this person?
4. What are some of the personal characteristics that helped or hurt this person?
5. What has this person achieved?
6. Who influenced this person?
7. Who was influenced by this person?
8. What was the pivotal event in the life of this person?
9. What does the title mean?
10. Who wrote the book?
11. Was there anything unusual about the organization of the book?
Introductions: Should grab your classmates’ attention and interest, and let the class know the plan and
content of the presentation.
Do
Get the audience’s attention with a story, quotation, or personal experience about your
person
Be creative!!
Provide context, background, and definitions listeners might need. If you are talking about
something technical and will be using those words a lot in your presentation, make sure your
audience knows what they mean.
State your purpose in giving the presentation.
Don’t
Start with “um” or “okay.”
Apologize for weaknesses in your content, preparation, or speaking ability. (“I’m sorry, this is
going to be bad.”)
Go on about how hard it was to choose a topic. (“I really had no idea what to do for this…”)
Conclusions: Should reinforce the message and give the speech unity and closure.
Do
Summarize the main points of your speech.
Refer back to the introduction.
Restate your purpose or thesis.
Create closure, a sense of finality.
Keep it relatively brief
Don’t
Resort to weak closing phrases like “and that’s all I have to say.”
Just trail off because you feel like it should end
Say “thank you” just because the audience doesn’t seem to realize that your
speech is over.