One Pager

A one pager is a single page personal response to your reading of a novel or short story. It is a creative way for you to express your understanding of a text and connect words and images within an aesthetically pleasing, compressed space.

Your one pager will be created on unruled paper that measures approximately 8½ x 11. The paper may either be plain white or colored construction paper. If using the latter, you may use plain white paper as backdrop for any of the individual items.

Your one pager must contain the five following components:

•          Excerpt from the text: Transcribe a significant excerpt from the text. Provided this excerpt relates to a theme in the text, this excerpt may be your favorite part, a powerful part, or a passage that you feel is especially important to the work as a whole. This excerpt should neither be too long or too short (an average paragraph is a good reference for length). Remember to use quotation marks and include the page number(s).

•          Response: Write a thorough response to the excerpt you have selected. Why did you select this particular paragraph? What is its significance to the work as a whole.

•          Ask and Answer Two Questions: Formulate two original questions about the text. These cannot be “yes or no” questions, but rather they should be higher order thinking questions that cause you to infer meaning from the text or which require you to make connections between different events or characters. Include a thorough answer to each question.

•          Visual: Include one visual that relates to the text. This may be a literal drawing of something that happened in the text, or it can be a symbolic representation. You may draw the visual yourself or take it from another source (e.g. magazines or clip art). Your visual should be in color unless it being in black and white is symbolically significant.

•          Cluster: Make a cluster about an important event, character, or theme in the text. Include examples from text as well as your impressions, thoughts, or insights regarding what you have read.

Your one pager must include all five of the abovementioned items, but you may arrange the items as you wish. The arrangement, however, should be purposeful. Make sure to include the title of the novel or short story on your one pager, and write your name and period on the back.