Create a short notebook with template pages containing about 20 to 40 sheets of paper. Keep it as simple as possible, but useful in methodically collecting information for a final book report. Design repetitive chapter templates with sections for describing the chapter's characters, events, setting, important details and a short reader response.
Announce that students will be reading the novel "Hatchet," which is the first book in Gary Paulsen's "Brian's Saga" series. Read a short biography about Paulsen together. Discuss interesting aspects of his life. Point out that most of Paulsen's books involve survival stories and that the author spent a lot of time by himself in the woods when he was a youth.
Explain that a book report of a novel is a summary detailing the events, characters setting and main ideas of the story as well as the reader's personal response. Give each student a "Hatchet" notebook. Read the first chapter with the entire class, stopping to think aloud about important information, including the separation of Brian's parents, the hatchet that Brian's mother gives him before his journey and the pilot's death. Work together to record notes for chapter one. Repeat this process of modeling note-taking through the first five chapters.
Let students begin taking over responsibility for the reading and note-taking at about chapter 6. Assign students to read one chapter a night as homework. Give them time to skim the chapter the following day. Have students work independently, in pairs or table groups on note taking about chapter 6. Visit with them as they work asking them questions about important points such as Brian's dreams about his parents and the shelter he constructs. Repeat this process for chapters 7 to 10. Be sure to ask students to justify their opinion of each chapter.
Hold a major class discussion after chapter 10, including questions about main idea and most important details. Elicit understanding of the novel's flashbacks by asking students how the author introduces Brian's family when they aren't with him in the wilderness. Have students recall the sequence of events in the story beginning with the pilot's heart attack and continuing on through Brian's experiences, such as hunting for food and accidentally becoming ill by eating poison berries, learning how to build a fire and being attacked by a skunk.
Repeat the process of semi-independent practice detailed in step 4, stopping for whole group discussions at chapters 12, 15 and 18. Hold a final discussion of the novel, then talk about how to "boil down" student notes to create a book report summarizing the novel. Provide a book report template that requires an (1) an introduction with a strong topic sentence, (2) three to four supporting paragraphs detailing the plot (in order) and characters and (3) a conclusion telling about the resolution of Brian's problem and the reader's opinion of the novel.