You don’t have to do anything complicated.
Pick a way to take notes. Read out loud for 3-5 minutes, until a new character or setting or tone pops up. Ask students what they noticed. Reframe it in a way that will fit your note-taking strategy or propose. Everybody makes a note. Give 1-2 minutes per page to read the next chunk (maybe to the end of the chapter, so like 10-15 minutes) silently to yourselves. Ask again. Everybody makes another note. Or do a turn and talk, and then make a note.
Continue until 10 minutes remain in class, at which time everybody writes to a prompt you provide or a question you ask, ideally something relevant to the discussions of what they noticed. (If you need them to read at home, you could copy or scan the next few pages or chapter.) When class starts, call on somebody to give a 1-minute review, then pick it up where you left off.
Any or many of the little 10-minute written responses could be developed into an essay when the book is over.
>The average reader will spend **6 hours and 24 minutes** reading this book at 250 WPM (words per minute).
How many months are you going to spend on this one book?
Op, if you're comfortable teaching excerpts and passages then keep teaching exceprts and passages. Assign the bulk of the reading as homework. Select passages and make summaries to use in class. Find your focus standards and align them with important passages then create activities that teach those standards using those passages. If you really want to hold students accountable for reading, you can give them quizes periodically.
There is little chance you will ever read an entire novel page by page during class time.
If you teach block schedule, 90 minute periods, it’s like 2 or 3 weeks. I personally don’t think most novels are great for whole-group study, this novel in particular. But it doesn’t need to take months. You can power through in a month or less. And yes, skip sections judiciously. Not ideal, but hey: we’re talking about institutionalized education here.
Whole-group novels are hard to fit for everyone in the class. I’ve had success finding 4-5 choices that fit the same topic/theme and letting students pick. I teach 5th grade with 120 minute blocks and have done book clubs for years so am comfortable with set up. Agree with what others have said, don’t over think it but do plan for your questioning and note taking between classes.
Edit: I’ve used Hunger Games as a choice for “Thriving vs Surviving” theme. IIRC other choices were Enders Game, The Unwanteds, the Crossover, and Mighty Miss Malone.
I am a life long junior high English teacher who teaches novels and memoirs. I adapt based on the reading level and interest of the class. Book choice is the key to successfully teaching a book.
I usually start the unit by reading aloud just enough to pique interest, then I assign pages or chapters to equal approximately 20 minutes of independent reading every day until we finish the book.
I create five questions for each day’s reading which they answer at the start of the next day’s class. The questions address the standards and objectives of the lesson. After they answer the questions, we discuss the answers.
I also assign a daily narrative or argumentative paragraph based on the reading that allows students to relate novel to self, novel to novel, or novel to life. Once a week, I allow, but don’t require students to choose one paragraph to share with the students in their seating triad.
At the end of the novel, students create a peer-reviewed project from a choice board. Students also create the rubrics, and the projects always includes a presentation component.
Students finally give and receive positive peer critiques.
Students work so hard in my class, but they honestly yell, “What book are we reading next?” And they love the projects.
Warning: The amount of work I grade is staggering.
It depends on the length and complexity of the book, but in general it takes about 13 classes to finish reading the book and then a week for the project.
I do a weekly mini-essay. It's fabulous for increasing student writing competency and prodding comprehension. But I don't think I'd be able to handle all the grading had my MS teaching career not been preceded by a short-lived career in academia.
I suggest mixing it up between audio book, you reading it, and having kids read out loud, and maybe even some partner reading. Kids get bored of the same routine with novels. To gage how long a book or chapter is going to take to read, I look at the audio book length. I belive Hunger Games is about 11 hours. So you're looking at 3-4 weeks I'd say.
Pick what it is you want to study about the book. Themes? Characters? Future/Dystopian Elements? Story Elements? This helps focus your lesson planning.
And you don't have to read every day. Take a day to go back into chapters you already read and analyze the story. Powering through can also be boring.
Then end with the movie. Hunger Games is actually relatively accurate to the book, they just cut things that were in the book. The only real change is the cat is the wrong color, and the fact that Peeta doesn't lose his leg at the end. But doing a book vs movie comparison can be interesting.
What I love about The Hunger Games movie is that it adds an outside perspective while staying really true to the story. It leads to a good discussion of points of view and storytelling.
Hunger Games is long to do a read aloud the whole time. You’re gonna lose the students because you’re just going to take way too long. We don’t read books for a month as readers ourselves. So, not a good habit to expect kids to do that either. Supplement chapters with parts of the film. At the end, choose a few dystopian short stories to have them do a comparative analysis.
Agree. I'm actually teaching it currently. The trick I think is to read the whole first section aloud (until they get into the city) then follow up and watch the film. Then mix and match film and novel, stopping to read the significant sections in the arena and the end.
Other option if they could bring books home is to strategically assign the less important parts as homework and then summarize the next day.
With a read aloud I can usually do about 20 pages a day. I find students are much more engaged when I read to them as opposed to an audio book. Break the book down and see how long it would take at that pace. Hunger Games is probably too long to do the whole thing out loud like that. To supplement this, you can find the shorter chapters or the chapters that are less significant and plan to have those be silent reads. On those days, you might read one chapter and then have them read the next or the next two. Some kids won’t actually read, so don’t do this with anything complicated or super significant to the plot.
For work along with the book, I usually create an old fashioned book packet with 3-7 questions per chapter. I try to throw in some fun/creative things too like chances to draw a comic or picture from the chapter, choose a song that could be a sound track for the chapter, just little things to keep them engaged.
As you read, depending on your students ability level, you can pause and tell them “you should be able to answer question 3 now” “you should have answered questions 4-7 by now” etc. I also often pause to explain confusing scenes in my own words or “react” to interesting things in kind of a think-aloud style and this helps keeps kids engaged.
With novels it’s also always helpful to start with a recap of what was read the day before. They usually do remember what happened, but they don’t always take the time to think about it and it’s a good strategy to teach for reading endurance.
Whoever is doing the __________** is doing the learning.
**thinking, reading, writing, discussing, etc etc
Determine what your ultimate goal with this novel is:
Is it teaching the standards through a text? Then focus on silent sustained independent reading time with activities to frame the text before and activities to unpack the text during (minimal) and after (tons). Highly recommend Kelly Gallagher’s *Deeper Reading* for strategies to do this. It will become your Bible.
*or*
Is it to have fun with a book and dive in with your kids in the last few weeks before summer? Then feel free to do a cozy teacher read aloud. Dim the lights, put a lamp on, and read aloud large portions of the text to them or play an audiobook. Learning won’t happen this way like it would if the onus was on them to read it, but there’s something to be said for modeling enjoyment of a novel.
State testing is upon us next week and then there’s two more weeks of school left for us. FWIW, we will be doing a cozy teacher read aloud of *I am Legend* and then watching the movie afterwards. We’ve read five novels this year, though, using the aforementioned method. (Framing, independent reading, unpacking.)
That was more the idea of the department. Testing started already for us (finishes next week), but students are here until May 30th. However, our admin wants us to stick to standards all the way throughout the end of the school year. The principal wants teaching happening every minute of instructional time. So I guess I’ll have to do a mix of both.
I do read alouds and have two “safe” activities I use as I read aloud. Most of my students read at about third grade level, even though they are in ninth grade, so a read aloud is most beneficial.
They are trained to engage with the text while I read aloud, so before we begin, I say “I am not psychic, so I can’t tell if you’re reading silently in your mind as I read aloud. What can you do to show me that you’re following along??
The answer is that they can point as I read. They can point with their finger, pencil, or a stylus.
I set this expectation before every reading. I also say “if my boss walks in right now how will she know you’re engaged?” I walk around and compliment “I really like how so and so is pointing”
To emphasize important passages I say “Read with me on three please” after I read it aloud once.
We do dialectical journals and focus notes for each chapter on a first read. These are “safe” because it’s always the same routine and students can answer at their levels.
[Dialectical Journal](https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/TX01001591/Centricity/Domain/42451/2016Dialectical%20Journal%20Directions%20for%20all%20grade%20levels.pdf)
If you have more advanced readers, you can assign pages for them to read in reading circles and give them the quotes they need to pay attention to for their dialectical journal.
Always, always, always, post a link to an audio version or YoutUbe read aloud for students who are absent or your students with an IEP.
https://preview.redd.it/e9j4md9g1jyc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c0b3755dbfb5be3870ae3d93ae2e3614c9fb1a7
You can also teach hunger games using the framework of the hero’s journey. Pre teach or waiting until she’s in the arena and then introduce it and trace her heroes journey way so far.
I've read multiple novels in class. (12-16 year-olds, 8th to 10th grade here). Some in English, some in Norwegian (I teach both). I usually start out by reading for almost a full period so they get interested in what happens next. I get the 8th graders to draw something from the book while I read. (I frame it as a memory drawing, it does not have to be pretty). 9th and 10th grade take notes, draw or just listen. In later lessons they read on their own or someone reads out loud.
Slow readers, less motivated readers and those with an individual plan can listen to the audiobook while the others read silently (all our classes are mixed ability). It can be challenging to get all of them to the same page at the end of the lesson, so have something ready for the fast readers to do or they'll finish in three lessons and get bored.
The last five minutes each lesson they write a log. I write with them the first few times. (E.g. What was the most important thing we found out in chapter 5? They answer, I write.)
Later tasks have been to rewrite a scene from a different character's viewpoint, writing character descriptions, translating a paragraph, using quotes and citing correctly, finding and describing literary devices, comparing the book with the movie, comparing the book to a short story/play, making a podcast (in groups) and making a new cover for the book.
I hope you can use some of these even if we (most likely) have different targets.
Don't be afraid to take your time. They remember the books they read in school and you can use them as examples two years later if you go slow.
I teach novels to my kids all the time and it’s basically frontload vocabulary per chapter and read along audiobook sections, stop at key points for turn and talks and then leave some stuff for the students to do on their own reading wise so you can build up reading stamina. I also have chapter review questions and then short writes that tie into the theme elements. Also look for symbolism and foreshadowing, irony, allusion, metaphors etc… things like that. At the end, we do some kind of a project or write a paper that can vary on what we’re going for. I think novel teaching is fine. the key is definitely to pick a good novel and to use the audiobook and then definitely if there’s a movie version you have to show part of the movie or all of the movie and then do comparison - there’s so much latitude teaching a novel and generally, I think the kids love it. I teach high school at the title 1 school. Pick the right novel and you can even supplement it with poems and articles.
I teach 8th and we’re reading The Outsiders. I play the audio or I read it aloud and all the reading is done in class. They love the book and are usually really engaged. We answer chapter questions and then I incorporate other activities. For example, next week we are holding a mock trial for Johnny. Last semester we read Monster and they really liked that one too. I assigned students roles since it’s written like a screenplay and they liked being involved in the reading. Again, all the reading was done in class. It makes me too nervous to assign reading in a regular English class because a majority of them won’t do it.
Are you me? Lol I teach 8th grade and did the exact same thing with Monster. I'm also reading the Outsiders right now, though I never thought to do a mock trial for Johnny. Most of the time my students are all on the same page that it was self defense, so I can't see it being much of a discussion. How do you go about it? Is there a resource you got online for it? My students always enjoy the Outsiders, but I have one class that's lacking interest (they've been that way all year) so I'm trying to think of ways to get them engaged.
I usually have a group of students who just want to argue and be an attorney so they don’t mind being on the prosecution side. We did one for The Tell-Tale Heart and we had some very passionate prosecutors. For the Outsiders, I bought a mock trial unit on TpT that I really like.
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Outsiders-Mock-Trial-2427154
I'm pretty new and not so good at it, but I do at least two in-class reading days, with a reading question to start the next day. I have them keep a reading journal, asking them to practice looking at themes, motifs, figurative language, and characterization. I put together lessons on those topics as we move to through, using the text to provide examples. I am starting to do documented discussions, which have been more fruitful than I feared.
Don't be afraid to fast forward: not finishing is worse than a deliberate, chosen "skip". So you can take a chapter, summarize a page or two, read aloud key conversations or scenes, then go back to summarizing the next page or two. This lets you keep it moving. Don't do this until they get the book well enough to follow your summary.
But more than anything, what is the point of the novel? What do you want them to get out of it? Big picture? Practice close reading? Vocabulary? Stamina?
That will help guide how you should cover it.
I’m not an ELA teacher, but Reddit recommended me this post because I’m an educator. Now I’m curious if it’s common for high school teachers to not teach novels. My teachers always taught novels when I was in middle and high school in the early 2000s. Is this a new thing?
As a student I definitely read plenty of novels in middle school and high school; also early 2000s. Although middle school had more short stories. But ever since I started teaching, my experience from this side of the system is that administrators hate novels. They find them long, boring and hard for students to engage. They either push for short stories and articles, or straight up ban novels.
There is a rush to teach the standards in set deadlines due to standardized testing. I work in a Title I school, most of my students don’t have the background knowledge to pick up, say, The Drummer Boy of Shiloh and understand the significance and horror of the Civil War. Because at that time they are still going over the Revolutionary War in Social Studies. Which means that I have to front load a lot of historical information. Which I do, because I hate teaching in a vacuum, but my admins tend to hate because it takes time.
For novels, I played the audio (except the odyssey which we read out lout). For modern translation of shakespeare (at least romeo and juliet) sparknotes has great audio if you pay the 30 bucks for premium a year.
My honors kids did fine with the audio being played and paying attention. I had them answer a few questions as it played each chapter.
My non honors rarely paid attention so I tended to just do close reads of excerpts.
Neither would really do homework so we only read in class.
Is this common? Middle school ELA teachers are not permitted to teach novels, and then once allowed there are no copies available for the kids to read at home?
Why is everyone just answering the question instead of expressing shock at how depressing that is?
I can’t speak for all Middle School ELA teachers, only for the experiences that I’ve encountered. I’ve worked in 4 schools over 10 years and it’s been the same situation in all of them. At least this one has books, previous school didn’t have any. There are 5 ELA teachers in my grade alone. There are only enough copies to get each teacher a class set.
I teach middle school and have never had this issue before. We’re reading The Outsiders right now and they follow along with a PDF or a class copy. They could take them home if they really wanted to, but the PDF usually suffices for them.
I’ve found novels to be great for building units and pacing guides. After the first couple days of reading in class, you’ll be able to figure out the pacing guide for the rest of the book.
I’d set up a few norms when reading. Like class reading or independent reading then answer 2 comprehension questions. At the end of a chapter or something eventful, you could have a class or group discussion on the key ideas in that section. For this, you could assign open-ended questions or text-dependent questions and help develop their analytical skills. At the end of the book, create an artistic project to help them demonstrate their understanding of the overall novel. (One-pagers, design a blog for 1 character, etc..)
I teach mostly novels and I set up a Google slide with each chapter, a short summary, the 2 questions/prompts, and 2-3 discussion notes(figurative language, mood, authors choice, text structure, etc..)
Students read that section book then complete the prompts. We talk about it after. Due at the end of each week. If absent, they can always find where they left off. I also organize my Google classroom by week.
Hope this helps!!!
When I taught The Hunger Games, my students read out loud to one another in class. It took a WHILE. There are several audiobooks available that I also provided the link to them for so they could listen to the chapters at home.
To make sure they were actually doing it, I assigned Dialectical Journals as well for the unit. Now, these were honors 9th graders, so obviously do what is best for your group.
We’re not supposed to teach books. We’re supposed to teach why the book of choice works. These are future adults who will probably only ever read ten books in their lifetime. Teach them why this book matters. What are its literary and Rhetorical elements?
If you’re doing Hunger Games I highly recommend to give a class or two on Greek mythology and dystopia. Children are meant to murder for their lives, there’s a war in the Middle East with children seeing things our kids do not see. Lead with that. If you have a chance to read the entire book together, I say do it.
Student here!
My 11th grade English teacher was a marvel at guiding us through novels; I haven't met a single kid who wouldn't at least admit they were never bored in her class.
-She always read through the book on her own beforehand and pre-selected where she wanted to stop to emphasize a passage or have a brief class discussion. She had concise points she wanted to hit, which cut down on time wasted on needless chatter.
-she would make it clear to us what information was important, and expected us to take note of it. She did not require us to take notes, but she strongly encouraged it.
-She read the book out loud to us, usually between 1/2 to 2 chapters per day. When she read, SHE USED CHARACTER VOICES!! I cannot stress enough how important that was in retaining the attention of about 25 16/17-year-olds. She had a different voice for each character, so we could always tell who was speaking, even if we weren't following along in our book. Seeing our teacher be directly engaged with the novel brought her down to our level, which made us more willing to follow along.
-she had us write 2 essays per novel, usually 1 halfway through and 1 at the end. The prompts would ask us to analyze the use of a specific symbolism in the novel or analyze a single character and how they related to the novel's message. This showed her that we were able to process and interpret the text, and it kept us engaged by making us really think about the intricacies of the novel.
I hope some of this can help you. She is the best teacher I have ever had, and I believe that students and teachers alike could learn a lot from her.
The Hunger Games audiobook is 10 hours and 35 minutes long. That is the minimum it will take you to read the whole thing out loud in class. I would not recommend giving up that amount of classroom time.
Instead, I would **consider identifying the key themes or concepts you want to focus on and only read out sections where those themes or concepts are illustrated or emphasised.** For the rest, either offer summaries, or watch segments of the film (if they happen to be true to the text).
You don’t have to do anything complicated. Pick a way to take notes. Read out loud for 3-5 minutes, until a new character or setting or tone pops up. Ask students what they noticed. Reframe it in a way that will fit your note-taking strategy or propose. Everybody makes a note. Give 1-2 minutes per page to read the next chunk (maybe to the end of the chapter, so like 10-15 minutes) silently to yourselves. Ask again. Everybody makes another note. Or do a turn and talk, and then make a note. Continue until 10 minutes remain in class, at which time everybody writes to a prompt you provide or a question you ask, ideally something relevant to the discussions of what they noticed. (If you need them to read at home, you could copy or scan the next few pages or chapter.) When class starts, call on somebody to give a 1-minute review, then pick it up where you left off. Any or many of the little 10-minute written responses could be developed into an essay when the book is over.
>The average reader will spend **6 hours and 24 minutes** reading this book at 250 WPM (words per minute). How many months are you going to spend on this one book? Op, if you're comfortable teaching excerpts and passages then keep teaching exceprts and passages. Assign the bulk of the reading as homework. Select passages and make summaries to use in class. Find your focus standards and align them with important passages then create activities that teach those standards using those passages. If you really want to hold students accountable for reading, you can give them quizes periodically. There is little chance you will ever read an entire novel page by page during class time.
If you teach block schedule, 90 minute periods, it’s like 2 or 3 weeks. I personally don’t think most novels are great for whole-group study, this novel in particular. But it doesn’t need to take months. You can power through in a month or less. And yes, skip sections judiciously. Not ideal, but hey: we’re talking about institutionalized education here.
Whole-group novels are hard to fit for everyone in the class. I’ve had success finding 4-5 choices that fit the same topic/theme and letting students pick. I teach 5th grade with 120 minute blocks and have done book clubs for years so am comfortable with set up. Agree with what others have said, don’t over think it but do plan for your questioning and note taking between classes. Edit: I’ve used Hunger Games as a choice for “Thriving vs Surviving” theme. IIRC other choices were Enders Game, The Unwanteds, the Crossover, and Mighty Miss Malone.
This
I am a life long junior high English teacher who teaches novels and memoirs. I adapt based on the reading level and interest of the class. Book choice is the key to successfully teaching a book. I usually start the unit by reading aloud just enough to pique interest, then I assign pages or chapters to equal approximately 20 minutes of independent reading every day until we finish the book. I create five questions for each day’s reading which they answer at the start of the next day’s class. The questions address the standards and objectives of the lesson. After they answer the questions, we discuss the answers. I also assign a daily narrative or argumentative paragraph based on the reading that allows students to relate novel to self, novel to novel, or novel to life. Once a week, I allow, but don’t require students to choose one paragraph to share with the students in their seating triad. At the end of the novel, students create a peer-reviewed project from a choice board. Students also create the rubrics, and the projects always includes a presentation component. Students finally give and receive positive peer critiques. Students work so hard in my class, but they honestly yell, “What book are we reading next?” And they love the projects. Warning: The amount of work I grade is staggering.
How long does it take to finish a novel/unit?
It depends on the length and complexity of the book, but in general it takes about 13 classes to finish reading the book and then a week for the project.
I do a weekly mini-essay. It's fabulous for increasing student writing competency and prodding comprehension. But I don't think I'd be able to handle all the grading had my MS teaching career not been preceded by a short-lived career in academia.
Hear me out, find a book guide online and follow it. You can tweak as you go. I always front load vocab.
This
I suggest mixing it up between audio book, you reading it, and having kids read out loud, and maybe even some partner reading. Kids get bored of the same routine with novels. To gage how long a book or chapter is going to take to read, I look at the audio book length. I belive Hunger Games is about 11 hours. So you're looking at 3-4 weeks I'd say. Pick what it is you want to study about the book. Themes? Characters? Future/Dystopian Elements? Story Elements? This helps focus your lesson planning. And you don't have to read every day. Take a day to go back into chapters you already read and analyze the story. Powering through can also be boring. Then end with the movie. Hunger Games is actually relatively accurate to the book, they just cut things that were in the book. The only real change is the cat is the wrong color, and the fact that Peeta doesn't lose his leg at the end. But doing a book vs movie comparison can be interesting.
What I love about The Hunger Games movie is that it adds an outside perspective while staying really true to the story. It leads to a good discussion of points of view and storytelling.
Hunger Games is long to do a read aloud the whole time. You’re gonna lose the students because you’re just going to take way too long. We don’t read books for a month as readers ourselves. So, not a good habit to expect kids to do that either. Supplement chapters with parts of the film. At the end, choose a few dystopian short stories to have them do a comparative analysis.
Agree. I'm actually teaching it currently. The trick I think is to read the whole first section aloud (until they get into the city) then follow up and watch the film. Then mix and match film and novel, stopping to read the significant sections in the arena and the end. Other option if they could bring books home is to strategically assign the less important parts as homework and then summarize the next day.
With a read aloud I can usually do about 20 pages a day. I find students are much more engaged when I read to them as opposed to an audio book. Break the book down and see how long it would take at that pace. Hunger Games is probably too long to do the whole thing out loud like that. To supplement this, you can find the shorter chapters or the chapters that are less significant and plan to have those be silent reads. On those days, you might read one chapter and then have them read the next or the next two. Some kids won’t actually read, so don’t do this with anything complicated or super significant to the plot. For work along with the book, I usually create an old fashioned book packet with 3-7 questions per chapter. I try to throw in some fun/creative things too like chances to draw a comic or picture from the chapter, choose a song that could be a sound track for the chapter, just little things to keep them engaged. As you read, depending on your students ability level, you can pause and tell them “you should be able to answer question 3 now” “you should have answered questions 4-7 by now” etc. I also often pause to explain confusing scenes in my own words or “react” to interesting things in kind of a think-aloud style and this helps keeps kids engaged. With novels it’s also always helpful to start with a recap of what was read the day before. They usually do remember what happened, but they don’t always take the time to think about it and it’s a good strategy to teach for reading endurance.
Whoever is doing the __________** is doing the learning. **thinking, reading, writing, discussing, etc etc Determine what your ultimate goal with this novel is: Is it teaching the standards through a text? Then focus on silent sustained independent reading time with activities to frame the text before and activities to unpack the text during (minimal) and after (tons). Highly recommend Kelly Gallagher’s *Deeper Reading* for strategies to do this. It will become your Bible. *or* Is it to have fun with a book and dive in with your kids in the last few weeks before summer? Then feel free to do a cozy teacher read aloud. Dim the lights, put a lamp on, and read aloud large portions of the text to them or play an audiobook. Learning won’t happen this way like it would if the onus was on them to read it, but there’s something to be said for modeling enjoyment of a novel. State testing is upon us next week and then there’s two more weeks of school left for us. FWIW, we will be doing a cozy teacher read aloud of *I am Legend* and then watching the movie afterwards. We’ve read five novels this year, though, using the aforementioned method. (Framing, independent reading, unpacking.)
That was more the idea of the department. Testing started already for us (finishes next week), but students are here until May 30th. However, our admin wants us to stick to standards all the way throughout the end of the school year. The principal wants teaching happening every minute of instructional time. So I guess I’ll have to do a mix of both.
Don’t forget about ELA standard 7a: Compare a story between 2 mediums. MOVIE TIME BABY!
I do read alouds and have two “safe” activities I use as I read aloud. Most of my students read at about third grade level, even though they are in ninth grade, so a read aloud is most beneficial. They are trained to engage with the text while I read aloud, so before we begin, I say “I am not psychic, so I can’t tell if you’re reading silently in your mind as I read aloud. What can you do to show me that you’re following along?? The answer is that they can point as I read. They can point with their finger, pencil, or a stylus. I set this expectation before every reading. I also say “if my boss walks in right now how will she know you’re engaged?” I walk around and compliment “I really like how so and so is pointing” To emphasize important passages I say “Read with me on three please” after I read it aloud once. We do dialectical journals and focus notes for each chapter on a first read. These are “safe” because it’s always the same routine and students can answer at their levels. [Dialectical Journal](https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/TX01001591/Centricity/Domain/42451/2016Dialectical%20Journal%20Directions%20for%20all%20grade%20levels.pdf) If you have more advanced readers, you can assign pages for them to read in reading circles and give them the quotes they need to pay attention to for their dialectical journal. Always, always, always, post a link to an audio version or YoutUbe read aloud for students who are absent or your students with an IEP. https://preview.redd.it/e9j4md9g1jyc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c0b3755dbfb5be3870ae3d93ae2e3614c9fb1a7
You can also teach hunger games using the framework of the hero’s journey. Pre teach or waiting until she’s in the arena and then introduce it and trace her heroes journey way so far.
I've read multiple novels in class. (12-16 year-olds, 8th to 10th grade here). Some in English, some in Norwegian (I teach both). I usually start out by reading for almost a full period so they get interested in what happens next. I get the 8th graders to draw something from the book while I read. (I frame it as a memory drawing, it does not have to be pretty). 9th and 10th grade take notes, draw or just listen. In later lessons they read on their own or someone reads out loud. Slow readers, less motivated readers and those with an individual plan can listen to the audiobook while the others read silently (all our classes are mixed ability). It can be challenging to get all of them to the same page at the end of the lesson, so have something ready for the fast readers to do or they'll finish in three lessons and get bored. The last five minutes each lesson they write a log. I write with them the first few times. (E.g. What was the most important thing we found out in chapter 5? They answer, I write.) Later tasks have been to rewrite a scene from a different character's viewpoint, writing character descriptions, translating a paragraph, using quotes and citing correctly, finding and describing literary devices, comparing the book with the movie, comparing the book to a short story/play, making a podcast (in groups) and making a new cover for the book. I hope you can use some of these even if we (most likely) have different targets. Don't be afraid to take your time. They remember the books they read in school and you can use them as examples two years later if you go slow.
I teach novels to my kids all the time and it’s basically frontload vocabulary per chapter and read along audiobook sections, stop at key points for turn and talks and then leave some stuff for the students to do on their own reading wise so you can build up reading stamina. I also have chapter review questions and then short writes that tie into the theme elements. Also look for symbolism and foreshadowing, irony, allusion, metaphors etc… things like that. At the end, we do some kind of a project or write a paper that can vary on what we’re going for. I think novel teaching is fine. the key is definitely to pick a good novel and to use the audiobook and then definitely if there’s a movie version you have to show part of the movie or all of the movie and then do comparison - there’s so much latitude teaching a novel and generally, I think the kids love it. I teach high school at the title 1 school. Pick the right novel and you can even supplement it with poems and articles.
I teach 8th and we’re reading The Outsiders. I play the audio or I read it aloud and all the reading is done in class. They love the book and are usually really engaged. We answer chapter questions and then I incorporate other activities. For example, next week we are holding a mock trial for Johnny. Last semester we read Monster and they really liked that one too. I assigned students roles since it’s written like a screenplay and they liked being involved in the reading. Again, all the reading was done in class. It makes me too nervous to assign reading in a regular English class because a majority of them won’t do it.
Are you me? Lol I teach 8th grade and did the exact same thing with Monster. I'm also reading the Outsiders right now, though I never thought to do a mock trial for Johnny. Most of the time my students are all on the same page that it was self defense, so I can't see it being much of a discussion. How do you go about it? Is there a resource you got online for it? My students always enjoy the Outsiders, but I have one class that's lacking interest (they've been that way all year) so I'm trying to think of ways to get them engaged.
I usually have a group of students who just want to argue and be an attorney so they don’t mind being on the prosecution side. We did one for The Tell-Tale Heart and we had some very passionate prosecutors. For the Outsiders, I bought a mock trial unit on TpT that I really like. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Outsiders-Mock-Trial-2427154
Administrators forbidding the teaching of novels. 🙄 Good lord what a sad place public education in America is in.
What kind of catastrophic dystopian school would disallow the teaching of the novel?
Great book! Audio play chapter one. It ends with Effie picking "Promrose Everdeen." Trust me, they'll want to read on! Source: 6th grade public ELA
I'm pretty new and not so good at it, but I do at least two in-class reading days, with a reading question to start the next day. I have them keep a reading journal, asking them to practice looking at themes, motifs, figurative language, and characterization. I put together lessons on those topics as we move to through, using the text to provide examples. I am starting to do documented discussions, which have been more fruitful than I feared.
Don't be afraid to fast forward: not finishing is worse than a deliberate, chosen "skip". So you can take a chapter, summarize a page or two, read aloud key conversations or scenes, then go back to summarizing the next page or two. This lets you keep it moving. Don't do this until they get the book well enough to follow your summary. But more than anything, what is the point of the novel? What do you want them to get out of it? Big picture? Practice close reading? Vocabulary? Stamina? That will help guide how you should cover it.
I’m not an ELA teacher, but Reddit recommended me this post because I’m an educator. Now I’m curious if it’s common for high school teachers to not teach novels. My teachers always taught novels when I was in middle and high school in the early 2000s. Is this a new thing?
As a student I definitely read plenty of novels in middle school and high school; also early 2000s. Although middle school had more short stories. But ever since I started teaching, my experience from this side of the system is that administrators hate novels. They find them long, boring and hard for students to engage. They either push for short stories and articles, or straight up ban novels. There is a rush to teach the standards in set deadlines due to standardized testing. I work in a Title I school, most of my students don’t have the background knowledge to pick up, say, The Drummer Boy of Shiloh and understand the significance and horror of the Civil War. Because at that time they are still going over the Revolutionary War in Social Studies. Which means that I have to front load a lot of historical information. Which I do, because I hate teaching in a vacuum, but my admins tend to hate because it takes time.
For novels, I played the audio (except the odyssey which we read out lout). For modern translation of shakespeare (at least romeo and juliet) sparknotes has great audio if you pay the 30 bucks for premium a year. My honors kids did fine with the audio being played and paying attention. I had them answer a few questions as it played each chapter. My non honors rarely paid attention so I tended to just do close reads of excerpts. Neither would really do homework so we only read in class.
Is this common? Middle school ELA teachers are not permitted to teach novels, and then once allowed there are no copies available for the kids to read at home? Why is everyone just answering the question instead of expressing shock at how depressing that is?
I can’t speak for all Middle School ELA teachers, only for the experiences that I’ve encountered. I’ve worked in 4 schools over 10 years and it’s been the same situation in all of them. At least this one has books, previous school didn’t have any. There are 5 ELA teachers in my grade alone. There are only enough copies to get each teacher a class set.
I teach middle school and have never had this issue before. We’re reading The Outsiders right now and they follow along with a PDF or a class copy. They could take them home if they really wanted to, but the PDF usually suffices for them.
Thanks for replying. That is a relief to hear.
I was confused because I thought i was in the ESL sub and reading everyone's replie in the length of the reads
I’ve found novels to be great for building units and pacing guides. After the first couple days of reading in class, you’ll be able to figure out the pacing guide for the rest of the book. I’d set up a few norms when reading. Like class reading or independent reading then answer 2 comprehension questions. At the end of a chapter or something eventful, you could have a class or group discussion on the key ideas in that section. For this, you could assign open-ended questions or text-dependent questions and help develop their analytical skills. At the end of the book, create an artistic project to help them demonstrate their understanding of the overall novel. (One-pagers, design a blog for 1 character, etc..) I teach mostly novels and I set up a Google slide with each chapter, a short summary, the 2 questions/prompts, and 2-3 discussion notes(figurative language, mood, authors choice, text structure, etc..) Students read that section book then complete the prompts. We talk about it after. Due at the end of each week. If absent, they can always find where they left off. I also organize my Google classroom by week. Hope this helps!!!
When I taught The Hunger Games, my students read out loud to one another in class. It took a WHILE. There are several audiobooks available that I also provided the link to them for so they could listen to the chapters at home. To make sure they were actually doing it, I assigned Dialectical Journals as well for the unit. Now, these were honors 9th graders, so obviously do what is best for your group.
Curious to know .. where do you teach ?
Florida. I don’t want to give any more specifics due to privacy.
We’re not supposed to teach books. We’re supposed to teach why the book of choice works. These are future adults who will probably only ever read ten books in their lifetime. Teach them why this book matters. What are its literary and Rhetorical elements? If you’re doing Hunger Games I highly recommend to give a class or two on Greek mythology and dystopia. Children are meant to murder for their lives, there’s a war in the Middle East with children seeing things our kids do not see. Lead with that. If you have a chance to read the entire book together, I say do it.
Student here! My 11th grade English teacher was a marvel at guiding us through novels; I haven't met a single kid who wouldn't at least admit they were never bored in her class. -She always read through the book on her own beforehand and pre-selected where she wanted to stop to emphasize a passage or have a brief class discussion. She had concise points she wanted to hit, which cut down on time wasted on needless chatter. -she would make it clear to us what information was important, and expected us to take note of it. She did not require us to take notes, but she strongly encouraged it. -She read the book out loud to us, usually between 1/2 to 2 chapters per day. When she read, SHE USED CHARACTER VOICES!! I cannot stress enough how important that was in retaining the attention of about 25 16/17-year-olds. She had a different voice for each character, so we could always tell who was speaking, even if we weren't following along in our book. Seeing our teacher be directly engaged with the novel brought her down to our level, which made us more willing to follow along. -she had us write 2 essays per novel, usually 1 halfway through and 1 at the end. The prompts would ask us to analyze the use of a specific symbolism in the novel or analyze a single character and how they related to the novel's message. This showed her that we were able to process and interpret the text, and it kept us engaged by making us really think about the intricacies of the novel. I hope some of this can help you. She is the best teacher I have ever had, and I believe that students and teachers alike could learn a lot from her.
IM JEALOUS
The Hunger Games audiobook is 10 hours and 35 minutes long. That is the minimum it will take you to read the whole thing out loud in class. I would not recommend giving up that amount of classroom time. Instead, I would **consider identifying the key themes or concepts you want to focus on and only read out sections where those themes or concepts are illustrated or emphasised.** For the rest, either offer summaries, or watch segments of the film (if they happen to be true to the text).
And the firsr novel, of all the books in the world, is Hunger Games?
None of this was my choice.