Let’s be honest: Your students don’t need another 5-paragraph essay. They’re burned out on formulaic writing and complain the second you mention a thesis or evidence. But you’re burned out, too: tired of teaching kids who “hate” writing and grading the same-old stack of uninspired essays. You’re craving something–anything–that will mix things up, engage your students, and show them that writing doesn’t have to suck. You’d love to make writing feel refreshing, creative, and fun, but you’ve got standards to teach and testing on the horizon, too.
If you’re nodding your head to all of this, then a review writing unit might be the breath of fresh air and “reset” you and your students need to enjoy writing again. It’s one of the most rewarding, successful, and fun (yes, really) writing units I’ve ever taught. A review unit is authentic, flexible, and immediately engaging because it taps into what students already care about: the movies they watch, the music they obsess over, the games they play, and the shows they binge. (Yes, you absolutely should let students write more than book reviews…more on that later)! At the same time, teaching review writing hits multiple writing standards, strengthens analytical thinking, and helps students practice persuasive and informational writing, all while giving them choice, voice, and ownership over their work.
Here’s why you should give a book, movie, music, and video game review writing unit a chance in your middle or high school ELA classroom:
1. It’s an authentic writing task for a real audience.
Students don’t need another essay or RACE paragraph that only the teacher will read. They need real-life writing tasks that they’re excited to “publish” and share with their friends. In a world of 5-paragraph essays, standardized testing “short answers,” and the same-old stale writing prompts, teens crave real-world writing that exists outside the classroom. Reviews are the perfect example of this–and they’re everywhere! Your students are already consuming them, even if they don’t realize it. They’re watching “I watched this so you don’t have to” TikToks, scrolling YouTube videos ranking every episode of their favorite show, checking comment sections to see if a new movie is “worth it,” and watching creators do track-by-track album reactions. They’re always sharing their own opinions, hot takes, and favorite things (in real life and online).
It only makes sense to tap into these things and teach students how to craft a compelling review, a lifelong skill they’ll actually use and appreciate learning. After all, teens love ranting, raving, and being right; we might as well teach them how to craft a real-life argument about their favorite video game or album. If you like the sound of this, check out this review writing unit that’s jam-packed with student-friendly mini-lessons, word choice exercises, learning stations, writing workshop stations, peer feedback speed discussion, and more.
2. Giving students choice and letting them review anything (not just a book) = instant buy-in.
If you’ve only assigned book reviews before, do yourself and your students a big favor and give them full choice on what to review. This is the difference between an incredibly successful review unit and an okay one. Don’t tell students what to review. Don’t limit them to books. If you want students to take ownership and produce their best writing yet, open it up to everything: movies, shows, music, and even video games too. (I promise you can still evaluate all the same skills and assess different types of reviews with the same rubric. More on that later!) The buy-in you’ll get with this kind of choice is incredible. Students don’t hate writing and “citing evidence” when their homework is to watch a movie, listen to an album, or play a video game! 😉
I actually assigned this review writing unit during a phase when my 8th graders complained about and hated EVERYTHING (lol, 8th-grade-itis, IYKYK). To my pleasant surprise, when I introduced this unit, they nodded their heads like ooookay, not so bad, excitedly brainstormed what to review, slipped their headphones on, and proceeded to produce some of the best writing of the whole year. All without complaint…I was astounded!
If you’ve only taught traditional book reviews, consider this your sign to mix things up this year and let students review anything and everything. Your future self will thank you when you’re reading different reviews about everything from Animal Crossing to Justin Bieber instead of 100 reviews of The Giver. (No shade, I actually love teaching The Giver!)
3. It engages even the most reluctant of writers and reaches every student where they are.
Giving students choice is what really hooks them on this unit, because what teenager doesn’t love sharing their big opinions, hot takes, and favorite things? But this choice is a game-changer for another reason, too: Students can choose the content that makes sense for them. This built-in differentiation helps meet every writer where they are.
Reluctant writers can choose something they’re really familiar with–content that might be a little easier for them to review–and focus more on the building blocks of writing. Meanwhile, students who are ready for more rigor can tackle content with serious depth and complexity and dig deeper into the creator’s choices. It’s the same task, but the thinking scales up or down. Whether it’s a middle schooler reviewing a graphic novel or a high school student critiquing symbolism in an allegorical film, students are practicing the same essential writing skills during a review writing unit.
4. Writing a review teaches students to use precise, descriptive, and persuasive language.
If your students are anything like mine, they’ll read a book, rate it 5 stars, but just say “IDK, it was good” when asked what they liked about it. They also love to say things are cool, intense, fire, mid, cringe, etc., without explaining what was fire or mid. A review writing unit helps solve this problem. First, it forces students to move beyond the vague adjectives and Gen Z slang and into precise, purposeful word choice. Second, it helps students understand that they have to back up their big opinions with evidence if they want people to take them seriously.
Writing a review truly challenges students to “show” instead of “tell,” because they must describe an experience of watching, listening, playing, or reading to someone who hasn’t experienced it firsthand. During our review unit, we hit word choice hard with mini-lessons, mentor texts, and writing exercises like “Give Your Adjectives a Glow Up.” You can check out my complete unit with everything you need to teach reviews HERE.
5. A review is the perfect blend of informational, analytical, and persuasive writing, so you’ll be hitting multiple writing standards with one assignment.
A review asks students to do three types of writing at once, which means it’s a great way to practice multiple writing standards. I also love using it to show students that real-world writing is so rarely just one genre (like those artificial 5-paragraph essays make it out to be). Instead, a review is a cohesive blend of multiple purposes of writing: First, writers have to inform their reader with a brief, spoiler-free summary that provides just enough context. Then, they analyze by breaking down specific elements—character development, themes, pacing, lyrics, visuals, or production choices—and explaining how those elements work (or don’t). Finally, they persuade by taking a clear stance and convincing the audience to watch, read, or skip the content.
Instead of teaching these skills in isolation, a review weaves them together naturally. Each section of a review serves a clear purpose, helping students understand why writers structure arguments the way they do. Review writing shows students how informational, analytical, and persuasive writing work together in real-world texts. It’s the authentic, relevant writing unit we need more of in our secondary ELA classrooms!
6. Writing a review helps students sharpen their close reading and analysis skills.
When students are challenged with reviewing The Summer I Turned Pretty series, proving that Taylor Swift’s “Life of A Showgirl” album is her best one yet, or critiquing Sunrise on the Reaping, they engage with the media differently. Just like we closely read and analyze key excerpts in literature, students must closely watch, listen, and play, paying attention to what makes the content stand out. While students love that their homework is to press play on that Netflix show or jam out to their favorite album, they quickly realize that analyzing and evaluating is more challenging than they thought. A review writing unit requires students to move beyond what the show or song is about and think about why it works and how the director or artist crafted it. “It’s good” isn’t good enough. Students have to break down the elements and choices that make it “good” (and we find a more precise adjective to replace “good,” of course).
In a book review, students might analyze the character development, comment on the pacing, or commend the author’s word choice. While reviewing a movie or show, viewers might examine key scenes, the soundtrack, the cast, camera angles, and other visual/auditory elements. In a music review, listeners might break down the lyrics, dig into metaphors, and provide context for the songs. During a video game review, players might evaluate the world-building, storytelling, design choices, and gameplay mechanics. Across every medium, students are doing the same analytical work at the heart of English class!
7. A review writing unit encourages creativity and empowers students to find their voice as writers.
As English teachers, we strive to spark creativity, encourage experimentation, and empower students to find their unique voice…only to assign another essay that makes no room for this kind of wordplay. Students hate writing because it is often just another chore in school: It never feels personal, exciting, or fun. There’s no time to tinker around with words, inject humor, or let their personality shine.
A review writing unit makes time for this. It gives students permission to become the authority on their chosen text and share their big opinions in a way unique to them. Whether students are opening with a hot take, making an unexpected comparison to other media, crafting a ridiculous but accurate metaphor to describe the content, or weaving in some slang to connect to their audience, there are so many ways to inject personality and voice into a review! They learn how word choice changes tone, how to balance informal and formal language, and how to use voice to connect with their audience. And best of all, they’ll stop asking questions like, “Is this long enough?” or “Am I done now?” and start asking, “Does this sound like me?” and “Does this metaphor make sense?” If this sounds like music to your ears, you can check out this unit with everything you need to teach review writing in middle or high school.
8. Reviews are great for teaching structure in a natural way (without another artificial 5-paragraph essay)!
Read a handful of reviews online, and you’ll notice a natural structure: summary → opinion → evidence. In fact, reading reviews is exactly what I do to start our unit: I have students read multiple mentor texts (examples of reviews) and record what they notice about the writing structure and style. While this task can be challenging at first, students quickly catch on to the general structure, see what makes a review compelling, and even begin to critique the critics! Students notice reviews open with a strong hook, provide context, offer a summary, and transition into a detailed evaluation of the media and its elements before concluding with a final recommendation. Each review is a little different in structure, tone, and type/depth of evidence, but most follow this general flow.
These examples set the expectation for students and serve as mentor texts any time students get stuck during the writing process. For example, when students come to me frustrated that they don’t know how to end their review, I’ll ask them to return to the examples and see what the critics do. Usually, a few examples provide all the inspiration and guidance students need to get past their writer’s block and back to work.
Mentor texts are crucial in any writing unit, but especially in a choice-based unit where students are writing about a variety of different “texts” (not just books). This is why my review writing unit is complete with 6 original reviews: 2 for books (one middle grade & one YA), 2 albums, 1 movie, 1 picture book, and 1 video game. It also contains links to over a dozen more reviews, so students have plenty of examples to guide their own writing. You can check out this comprehensive unit for middle and high school HERE.
9. A review writing unit is short and sweet, perfectly timed to work well in between units and at any time of the year.
Depending on your time and goals, a review writing unit will take 2-3 weeks, which makes it easy to slot into your pacing guide whenever you need a boost or a quick review of essential writing skills. This mini unit works especially well between an informational writing unit and a persuasive/argumentative unit. You can also use it as a stepping stone to literary analysis or even a film analysis unit. (Read about how I use films in middle & high school ELA HERE.) A review unit can also be a great way to review all the writing skills you’ve taught all year, which makes it a perfect unit for the end of the year. I also love using this unit to start the new year after winter break. It’s a great way to start the year with a strong foundation and remind students that writing can be fun, refreshing, and relevant. The possibilities are endless!
This review writing unit comes with detailed plans and resources, a 3-week pacing calendar, and suggestions on what to cut/adjust if you want to condense it to 2 weeks.
10. Reviews are easy, quick, and (dare I say?) enjoyable to grade. You can get your grading done in class!
Grading a stack of reviews about Bluey, Post Malone, and Scythe is much more entertaining than grading 100 generic essays on the same topic. And thanks to the straightforward structure of reviews and a super strategic, universal rubric, you can grade reviews quickly, too. But the cherry on top? If you’re determined, you can absolutely get your grading done in class so you don’t have to lug home that tote bag of papers over the weekend.
One way to do that is to grade the reviews piece by piece during the writing process, first checking off the summary, then the thesis, each body paragraph, etc. Another option is to host a gallery walk, presentation day, or a type of publishing celebration that allows you to read/listen to reviews in class and quickly circle the categories on the rubric. Whatever you do, I can promise you that grading the reviews will be much easier and enjoyable than the last 5-paragraph essay you assigned! 😉
Review writing is one of those magical units that tricks students into learning (my favorite). Students are just so excited to share their hot takes and favorite things that they don’t realize how hard they’re working on essential ELA skills: summarizing, writing thesis statements, crafting claims, citing evidence, and persuading their audience. It’s engaging, challenging, and perfectly aligned to the standards, but most importantly, it gives you a chance to change how students view writing. Writing should feel exciting, authentic, relevant, and rewarding. (When’s the last time a 5-paragraph essay did that?)
Ready to try a book, movie, music, or video game review writing unit? If you don’t want to reinvent the wheel, I’ve got you covered with a review unit that will save you hours of planning, make teaching feel more sustainable, and help your young writers grow. My comprehensive review writing unit includes mentor texts across multiple media types, clear scaffolds, engaging writing exercises, a universal rubric, flexible pacing guide for middle and high school classrooms, and more. Check it out HERE.
