Finding an authentic way to assess novels can be frustrating. As a middle school or high school English Language Arts teacher, you’ve probably tried just about anything to create a little ✨ book magic ✨ in your own classroom. Let me add one more tool to your arsenal. Enter: Book Flat Lays. You probably see these in the wild often. Book bloggers and influencers use these often to draw attention to books, but why not use them to assess your students’ understanding of the content of a book? Let’s dive in.
What’s a Flat Lay?
A “flat lay” is a photography term for an image shot directly above. It includes a bird’s eye view of an item with carefully curated objects surrounding it. It’s become increasingly popular with books lately, but you can see it really with any object, especially food or fashion items. As soon as I pulled out some examples to show my students, they immediately knew what it was.
How to Create a Book Flat Lay
- Before we began creating our flat lays, the students in my Young Adult Literature course began to brainstorm a list of items that could be used in the flat lay. We had just finished reading We Were Liars by E. Lockhart as a part of our mystery unit, so it felt like a perfect place to start.
- After carefully curating a list of objects, we set a date to take our photos. Students knew they needed to hunt down some objects and we also recruited our Media Specialist to help. (They always have tons of props for book displays!)
- On the day of the shoot, we lined large paper across a table and spread out our objects. We got to work staging the books and shooting photos. I gave a crash course (as much as my own experience would allow) in angles and spacing.
- When we were all satisfied with the amount of photos we took, we uploaded them to a shared folder and got to work editing. I, again, gave a short overview of some easy editing techniques using Canva and we edited the photos until we liked what we had.
- Students then completed a reflection assignment to explain how their objects connected to the novel. It was very easy to see who had read and understood the material in depth and who was reaching.
Tips for Creating Book Flat Lays with Your Students
- Enlist the help of your Media Specialist if you can. Ours was really helpful in finding objects for us to work with.
- Most students used their own phones to take photos, but I also had mine available for anyone who needed it. It might be worth finding a camera to use as well, but we did fine with our phones.
- Give plenty of time between brainstorming your list and actually shooting the photos for students to come up with the items. Many of my students created their own props (like letters or post cards, for example) and printed them out.
Examples of Flat Lays
Here are just a few of the flat lays we created.
Ready to Try It?
If you’re looking for a no-prep resource to implement this project in your own classroom, click here to grab all of my materials. The resource includes teacher instructions, student worksheets, a Google Slides companion, and an editable rubric.
I hope this post inspires you to try Book Flat Lays in your own classroom. It was such a fun experience and it’s sure to create a little extra magic for your students.
Decide to try it out? Tag me on Instagram @samanthainsecondary! I would love to see what you and your students come up with and share with other teachers who might love to try it!
Happy teaching!
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