Cause and Effect Tree
Book Report Project

A very DETAILED description about this resource set is provided below.

Cause and Effect Tree
Book Report Project Templates:
Teaching Resources Set

What's Included?

Your students will branch out and learn about cause and effect relationships with this fun tree shaped book report project.

These cause and effect tree shaped graphic organizers will provide you with all of the teaching resources that you need for your students to write about the cause and effect relationships that are in their books.

These reading lesson plans will help you teach your students about the cause and effect relationships in stories. For this project, students write the causes in the tree's branches and the effects in the tree's leaves.

Traditionally, requiring students to write about the cause and effect relationships that are in a book is a task that most students find quite boring. By using this uniquely shaped Cause and Effect Tree Book Report Project, your students will be branching out to write about these elements of their books.

Traditionally, requiring students to write about the cause and effect relationships that are in a book is a task that most students find quite boring. By using this uniquely shaped Cause and Effect Tree Book Report Project, your students will be branching out to write about these elements of their books.

This uniquely shaped book report project contains 3 worksheet templates that assemble into a tree with six branches. The finished cause and effect project measures 13 inches in width and 17 inches in height.

These finished tree book report projects will make a unique and eye catching classroom display of your students' work.

Everything that you need to complete these Cause and Effect Tree Book Report Projects is included in this set. All that you will need is scissors, glue, tape, and coloring pencils.

There are 12 worksheet and template pages in this set, as well as a 5 page color bulletin board display banner.

There are also two additional cause and effect classroom displays contained in this teaching resource set. The first bulletin board display set contains cause and effect signal words and the second set contains definitions and sentence examples.

Assembling Directions:

This set includes assembly directions on how to prepare and assemble this project. Below is a sample of this directions page.

Grading Rubric:

This set includes a book report grading rubric.

I believe that it is important for students to evaluate their own work, so my grading rubric contains both a student assessment and a teacher assessment component. When the students grade their work, they color in the faces. When the teacher grades the work, the teacher circles the small numbers in each box beside the faces. I often find that my students are harsher on themselves than I am, and that the grade that I give them is higher than they have scored themselves.

Below is an example of my Cause and Effect Tree Book Report grading rubric:

First Draft Worksheets:

I believe that the writing process is important and that teachers should use process writing whenever possible. For this reason, my students never begin their book report projects by writing on their final draft templates, instead they write on first draft worksheets. Then, they edit and revise their work on their own, with a partner, or in individual writing conferences with me.

This Cause and Effect Tree Book Report Project contains two branch templates, a trunk template, and additional leaves to glue onto the tree branches.

There is an area for students to draw a picture of a cause and effect on the trunk template.

• Book Information: Title, Author, Genre, and Name
• 6 Cause Branches
• 6 Large Effect Leaves
• 1 Trunk Template: Title oval template and a drawing area for a cause and effect.
• 12 Small Leaves

Due to spelling differences in English (words like color/colour and favorite/favourite), there are two sets of downloads for these worksheets, as well as the final draft templates. You can select the spelling that is used in the country that you are from.

This set contains two worksheets for students to write their first drafts on. On my first draft worksheets, I have designed the writing line spaces to match the spaces allotted on the final draft tree templates.

Below is an example of the first draft worksheets.

Black and White Tree Templates:

This Cause and Effect Tree Book Report Project includes 2 branch templates and 1 trunk template. There is an area on the trunk for students to draw and color an example of a cause and effect from a part of their books.

Below are examples of these 3 tree templates.

Below are examples of these 3 tree templates. The next worksheet contains the title oval template and 12 smaller leaves. The title oval is glued in the middle of the tree's trunk, above the drawings.

There are 6 large leaves on the branch templates (see above). The next worksheet (see below) contains 6 smaller leaves facing both left and right (12 small leaves in total). These smaller leaves are extra accent pieces that can be glued on the remaining branches.

I have left these small leaf templates blank, so that you could chose to also use them for a writing topic. They may also be left blank and just used as accent pieces.

Below are some possible ideas for writing topics that can be used with these small leaves:

• Characters
• Character Traits and Adjectives
• Vocabulary

Below is an example of the worksheet that contains the title oval and small leaves.

Color Tree Templates:

When I am first introducing my students to a new project, I believe that it is important for them to have a visual picture of what their final draft should look like. I always assemble the project myself beforehand and complete it.

My students enjoy seeing my cause and effect tree project first (especially because I am horrible at drawing!). They also enjoy hearing about the book that I chose to do my book report on, and this gives me a great chance to promote a book that I would like to encourage my students to read.

To save you time in coloring your example that you show your students, I have included color tree templates of this project for you to use.

Teaching Cause and Effect
Relationships Using Picture Books:

Authors often rely on the cause and effect text structure to explain, show order, change character behavior, and create plot. Since cause and effect may be a difficult concept for your students to understand, or they may not have been taught this literary element before, you may want to model and teach this concept before you assign this project to your students.

It would be a good idea to read aloud a book and then use that book as an example to teach cause and effect relationships to your students.

Below is a list of books that you could use that contain cause and effect relationships in them. This list only contains short picture book titles because it would likely take too long to read aloud a longer book to your students to use as a teaching example.

• Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
• If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff
• The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
• Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears by Verna Aardema
• Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes
• The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash by Trinka Hakes Noble
• Chicken Little by Steven Kellog
• Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
• Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
• The Napping House by Audrey and Don Wood

When choosing a book to read as an example, I advise that you do not choose a mystery story. Mysteries often show the effects first and often the rest of a mystery story is used to figure out the cause.

One teaching strategy that is often effective in teaching students to recognize and understand the cause and effect text structure is to teach signal words (because, so, since, etc.)

This Cause and Effect Tree Book Report Project contains a bulletin board display of 11 of these signal words (see visual example in Extra Goodies section below.)

A second strategy is to teach the three types of cause and effect relationships:

• Stated: Stated cause and effect relationships are clearly stated in the text and often involve signal words.
• Unstated: Unstated relationships require that students make an inference.
• Sequential: In sequential cause and effect relationships, effects may be part of a chain in which one effect goes on to cause a second effect, and so on.

In your examples that you are modeling to your students, try to find cause and effect relationships that are easy to identify because they are in the same sentence or use signal words to identify them.

Then, explain to your students that many times cause and effect relationships in stories do not occur in the same sentence and are not associated with signal words. Try to find cause and effect examples from the story that you read to your students that do not occur in the same sentence and that do not contain signal clues.

Free 5 Page Bulletin Board Display Banner:

Finally, I know that it takes teachers a lot of time to assemble their classroom bulletin board displays. Many teachers spend their valuable time cutting out large display letters or making a banner on their own at home on their computer.

This time is valuable and better spent on developing your classroom curriculum and grading papers, so I have designed a matching 5 page display banner for your bulletin board. If you have access to a laminating machine, you can laminate your banner so that it is durable and you can use it year after year for your bulletin board display of these Cause and Effect Tree Book Report Projects.

Free Bulletin Board Display Accent Pieces:

EXTRA GOODIES: For some of my book report projects, I am able to think of, and create, additional accent pieces to help you in decorating your bulletin board displays.

This Cause and Effect Tree Book Report Project includes a set of signal words that you can display in your classroom as you are introducing finding cause and effect relationships in stories to your students.

Teaching students to use signal words to find cause and effect relationships in stories helps them to begin to understand this concept. There is a 19 inch (3 page) display banner and 11 signal word cards: since, because, if...then, after, reason, result, thus, so, consequence, therefore, and due to.

This Cause and Effect Tree Book Report Project includes a set of cause and effect definitions and example sentences that you can display in your classroom during this unit of instruction.

There is a 19 inch (3 page) display banner, definitions of cause and effect, and 4 example sentence cards with arrows.

I hope that these two EXTRA GOODIES that are included in this Cause and Effect Tree Book Report Project help save you time in planning your lessons and decorating your bulletin board display areas.

You will be able to design a colorful, dynamic, and eye catching bulletin board display using your students' finished Cause and Effect Tree Book Report projects.

These tree graphic organizers are a creative and fun way to have your students write about the cause and effect relationships that are in their stories.

By completing this fun reading project, your students' reading skills will branch out as they learn to understand the importance of cause and effect relationships in stories, and it will help them to use this strategy in their own writing.

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