Children’s Book Week

KS3 Speaking
and Listening
What makes a great book?
Activity
The great book debate

Aims
• Explore students’ understanding of what makes a great book.
• Develop group discussion and debating skills.

Whole class
Put the phrase ‘A great book…’ on the whiteboard as students
enter the room. Ask students to finish the phrase in their books
or on a piece of paper as an introductory task. Don’t take any
feedback at this stage so that phrases can be reflected on in the
plenary.
Then give students a copy of the ‘What makes a great book?’
activity sheet (at the end of this resource) and ask them to
consider each statement. Allow them some quiet, private time to
look at each statement and tick the box they feel is appropriate.
Once students have had some thinking time, ask them to turn to a
partner to discuss their thoughts.

Development
Tell the students that they are going to have a class debate based
on some of these statements. Decide as a class which statements
should be debated – three statements should work well in the time
allowed, and the more contentious the better!
Then, split the class in two (an agree team and a disagree team).
Give students sufficient time to prepare their arguments – all
students should be involved in the process at this stage.
Students should be encouraged to use points raised in discussions
from the start of the lesson and they should support their
arguments with evidence of books they know.
Each team should then select one person to chair the debate and
two students who will argue their case. You will also need a volunteer
to be timekeeper. All other students now become the audience. The
following should then happen:

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Children’s Book Week
1. The Chairperson group begins the debate by introducing the
question ‘What makes a great book?’ and the statements to be
argued. They will make notes as the arguments are presented.
2. The first speaker of the agree team puts forward their argument in
support of the chosen statements. They will have a maximum of five
minutes to do this. The timekeeper should keep time and indicate
when there are 30 seconds left and when time is up.
3. The first speaker of the disagree team then puts forward their
argument against the chosen statements (up to five minutes again)
4. The second speaker of the agree team then adds to the first
member’s argument and tries to challenge some of the points made
in the disagreeing team’s argument.
5. The second speaker of the disagree team does the same.
6. The Chairperson group then declares the statements ‘open to the
floor’ and asks members of the audience to state their opinions or
ask the speakers questions about the arguments they have heard.
7. The Chairperson group then asks the audience to vote on which
team should win the debate.

Plenary
Students could work in pairs or teams of four to come up with their
own definitive list of criteria about what makes a great book, selecting
statements from the worksheet or adding some of their own that might
have emerged from discussion – i.e. a great book makes me feel happy,
reassures me, makes me feel like I belong.
Ask students to come up with five key statements in the time available.
They should reflect on all the discussion points and resources from the
lesson to support their decisions. You could also ask students to reflect
on their phrases from the start of the lesson to see if their thoughts have
changed.

Extension activity
As an extension or homework task, ask students to look at Book Trust’s
Best Book Guide and decide which books would fit their chosen criteria.
Does considering the genre of different books impact on how they fit
the criteria? Students could divide the books in the Best Book Guide into
genres – fantasy, humour, contemporary, sci-fi, horror, romance etc., and
see how many fall into each category. What does this tell us about how
genre affects the judgement of books by readers?

Resources
• IWB
• Photocopies of ’What makes a great book?’ activity sheet
• Book Trust’s Best Book Guide, available from
booktrust.org.uk/cbw

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 Children’s Book Week

KS3 objectives met

Speaking and Listening
1.1 Developing active listening skills and strategies
1.2 Understanding and responding to what speakers say in formal
and informal contexts
2.1 Developing and adapting speaking skills and strategies in
formal and informal contexts
3.1 Developing and adapting discussion skills and strategies in
formal and informal contexts
3.2 Taking roles in group discussion
Reading
5.3 Reading and engaging with a wide and varied range of texts
Overall KS3 curriculum aims
• Appreciating our rich and varied literary heritage
• Using discussion in order to learn; elaborating and clearly
explaining understanding and ideas
• Competence in the arts of speaking and listening, making
formal presentations, demonstrating to others and
participating in debate

Cross curricular links

History, Geography, IT
You could open out this discussion to nonfiction as well as fiction
titles and consider how a historical biography, glossy photographic
volume documenting Mayan temples (Geography) or a book of fashion
design can compare to great books of fiction. Do you need different
criteria?Think about ebooks and apps too. Have another debate about
what makes a good story app. Do you need to make a new set of criteria
based on functionality, design, interactivity, sound, colour, music etc?
Involve the IT teacher in the debate.

Additional needs
Look at a variety of books in the classroom to accompany this debate
and, if you can, source books by international writers writing in English
as well as non-English languages. Scaffold the debate activity by
having a wide discussion around favourite books, giving children the
opportunity to present a book in another language or that demonstrates
cultural diversity. You could bring a selection of your own to share – have
a look at Book Trust’s Bookfinder for some ideas:
booktrust.org.uk/#/d/books/bookfinder/
Illustration © Quentin Blake

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Children’s Book Week

What makes a great book?

Look at each of the following statements and decide whether you agree or disagree.
Be prepared to support your opinions with reasons and examples of books that
support your viewpoint.

Agree Disagree Not sure

A great book must have an action-packed story

A great book must have a hero/heroine

A great book must have an exciting opening

A great book must have a happy ending

A great book must have a twist in the plot

A great book must have an imaginary world

A great book makes you learn something

A great book can be enjoyed by adults and children

A great book can be made into a great film

A great book has a great setting

A great book is written by a great writer

A great book has characters who you like

A great book involves romance

A great book involves tragedy

A great book is long and has lots of detail

A great book has a great cover

A great book can change your life

A great book ‘stands the test of time’

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