Whole Novels: A Novel Idea
Ya'll this teacher of reading is excitedly jumping on the whole novels train. While there are adjustments I will have to make for my curriculum and the expectations and context of my school, I am buying what Sacks is selling.
In her presentation of the whole novels system, Sacks explains the rationale behind her choices very simply with two main points:
1. Prescriptive curriculum limits students. It gives them a point to reach, but does not ask them to keep going. When teachers expect a specific answer from students, they may invalidate the myriad of answers that students might produce on their own.
2. The novel as a format is meant to be enjoyed as a whole. The whole novels system allows students to experience the novel the way they might in a college course or in a book club. When teachers chunk up a novel into sections, they deny students the opportunity to experience the art the way it was intended, and they prepare students to be high school students of English, but not necessarily real world life long readers.
The basics of the whole novels system is also simple:
1. Students are given a date by which they have to have read the book in its entirety. Much of this reading will be done for homework, but time is given each day for reading in class.
2. Students use sticky notes to make annotations as they read. The teacher provides guidelines and expectations for these and they are assessed.
3. During this time in class, students read their novel independently, in pairs, and as a whole group.
4. Simultaneously, during class time students read supplemental texts that inform the context of the novel or reinforce structural or thematic ideas, and students complete group mini projects that give them practice with literary terms.
5. Students participate in a discussion over the course of three class periods that lets them discuss the novel on a surface level, an evidence based level, and finally, a critical level.
6. The discussion yields essay prompts that students write literary analysis essays in response to, and students also have a creative writing assessment inspired by their work in the novel.
This reading has greatly shaped my final project because the whole novels system will greatly inform my approach to my first unit with my 9th graders. This unit that introduces my students to literary analysis and calls on them to write their own fiction has been given new life using the whole novel system. I've also thematically linked what will be happening in my 9th grade classroom next year. I'm extending the theme of unit one: coming of age to span the entire semester. In unit one with TSK we will look specifically at family and how they impact coming of age. In unit two, with Romeo and Juliet, and their choice social justice topic novels for research, we will look specifically at coming of age amidst controversy, during unit three, with TKAM, we will look at coming of age and injustice, and in unit four, alternative texts and media literacy, we'll look at coming of age in 2019/2020. This direction has totally reshaped how I'm approaching both my curriculum and my final project, and as much as I'm enjoying summer break, I'm ready to get started!
Below are some notes on how this system may play out in my unit and subsequently in my final project:
-On day two of the semester students will be introduced to the novel and we will read the first chapter together. Since this is a Friday, students will go home with a reading assignment. A reading calendar that evenly divides the pages to be read as well as outlining the final due date will also be given to students.
-Sticky notes for annotation will largely replace dialectical journal assignments that serve as practice for analytical paragraphs.
-Sticky notes/annotations will have specific guidelines based on the lit term focus for each week (students will be introduced to new terms each Monday) in the novel study. Students will also mark and label passages they would like to return to in our final discussions.
-I will replace the group mini projects with JPA's (joint product activity). This will give students an opportunity to practice analysis of the devices they are learning about. It will give them the opportunity to make assertions, support those assertions with evidence, and to use analysis to explain how their evidence supports their assertion. We will work in these texts for practice, so as not to interfere with students' reading of the novel.
-Students will use their annotations to write analytical paragraphs on Wednesdays. I will circulate in order to give immediate feedback and to compile whole group feedback to present on Thursday. Students will revise their writing on Thursday and it will be due on Friday.
-Friday's will be space for Fiction writing. Students will work explicitly on developing their lit terms of focus in their own writing.
-At the end of the unit, I will split the class into two groups. For three days, one group will participate in discussion for half the class while the other group works independently on their Fiction writing project. The groups will swap places halfway through each class period in the three day span.
-The final day of the unit will be a celebration of writing where we have coffee shop and share out our completed fiction pieces.
Because I am expected to collaborate with team members, there are certain terms I am obligated to cover certain weeks, so I cannot turn students completely loose with the novel. What I have committed to doing is stepping back and letting students experience the novel for themselves- instead of guiding them to have a version of my own experience with the text.
This reading really has me on fire for teaching the novel. I'm excited to put it to work for The Serpent King, and if I don't totally ruin it- I will happily implement some version of this system with TKAM as well. Switching up my approach to that novel might be enough to get me out of the rut I'm in with it.
*I just went to a week long PD conference put on by CLASE at UGA about JPA's. Basically it is a system that actually makes group work WERK! It is fantastic, and I would be happy to share with anyone interested!
Featured is the unit map that I created and color coded while reading this text- clearly it got my creative juices flowing! I felt inspired to say the least. I have many questions about the practicality of this method and the accountability for students, but I'm convinced enough to give it a shot.
In her presentation of the whole novels system, Sacks explains the rationale behind her choices very simply with two main points:
1. Prescriptive curriculum limits students. It gives them a point to reach, but does not ask them to keep going. When teachers expect a specific answer from students, they may invalidate the myriad of answers that students might produce on their own.
2. The novel as a format is meant to be enjoyed as a whole. The whole novels system allows students to experience the novel the way they might in a college course or in a book club. When teachers chunk up a novel into sections, they deny students the opportunity to experience the art the way it was intended, and they prepare students to be high school students of English, but not necessarily real world life long readers.
The basics of the whole novels system is also simple:
1. Students are given a date by which they have to have read the book in its entirety. Much of this reading will be done for homework, but time is given each day for reading in class.
2. Students use sticky notes to make annotations as they read. The teacher provides guidelines and expectations for these and they are assessed.
3. During this time in class, students read their novel independently, in pairs, and as a whole group.
4. Simultaneously, during class time students read supplemental texts that inform the context of the novel or reinforce structural or thematic ideas, and students complete group mini projects that give them practice with literary terms.
5. Students participate in a discussion over the course of three class periods that lets them discuss the novel on a surface level, an evidence based level, and finally, a critical level.
6. The discussion yields essay prompts that students write literary analysis essays in response to, and students also have a creative writing assessment inspired by their work in the novel.
This reading has greatly shaped my final project because the whole novels system will greatly inform my approach to my first unit with my 9th graders. This unit that introduces my students to literary analysis and calls on them to write their own fiction has been given new life using the whole novel system. I've also thematically linked what will be happening in my 9th grade classroom next year. I'm extending the theme of unit one: coming of age to span the entire semester. In unit one with TSK we will look specifically at family and how they impact coming of age. In unit two, with Romeo and Juliet, and their choice social justice topic novels for research, we will look specifically at coming of age amidst controversy, during unit three, with TKAM, we will look at coming of age and injustice, and in unit four, alternative texts and media literacy, we'll look at coming of age in 2019/2020. This direction has totally reshaped how I'm approaching both my curriculum and my final project, and as much as I'm enjoying summer break, I'm ready to get started!
Below are some notes on how this system may play out in my unit and subsequently in my final project:
-On day two of the semester students will be introduced to the novel and we will read the first chapter together. Since this is a Friday, students will go home with a reading assignment. A reading calendar that evenly divides the pages to be read as well as outlining the final due date will also be given to students.
-Sticky notes for annotation will largely replace dialectical journal assignments that serve as practice for analytical paragraphs.
-Sticky notes/annotations will have specific guidelines based on the lit term focus for each week (students will be introduced to new terms each Monday) in the novel study. Students will also mark and label passages they would like to return to in our final discussions.
-I will replace the group mini projects with JPA's (joint product activity). This will give students an opportunity to practice analysis of the devices they are learning about. It will give them the opportunity to make assertions, support those assertions with evidence, and to use analysis to explain how their evidence supports their assertion. We will work in these texts for practice, so as not to interfere with students' reading of the novel.
-Students will use their annotations to write analytical paragraphs on Wednesdays. I will circulate in order to give immediate feedback and to compile whole group feedback to present on Thursday. Students will revise their writing on Thursday and it will be due on Friday.
-Friday's will be space for Fiction writing. Students will work explicitly on developing their lit terms of focus in their own writing.
-At the end of the unit, I will split the class into two groups. For three days, one group will participate in discussion for half the class while the other group works independently on their Fiction writing project. The groups will swap places halfway through each class period in the three day span.
-The final day of the unit will be a celebration of writing where we have coffee shop and share out our completed fiction pieces.
Because I am expected to collaborate with team members, there are certain terms I am obligated to cover certain weeks, so I cannot turn students completely loose with the novel. What I have committed to doing is stepping back and letting students experience the novel for themselves- instead of guiding them to have a version of my own experience with the text.
This reading really has me on fire for teaching the novel. I'm excited to put it to work for The Serpent King, and if I don't totally ruin it- I will happily implement some version of this system with TKAM as well. Switching up my approach to that novel might be enough to get me out of the rut I'm in with it.
*I just went to a week long PD conference put on by CLASE at UGA about JPA's. Basically it is a system that actually makes group work WERK! It is fantastic, and I would be happy to share with anyone interested!
Featured is the unit map that I created and color coded while reading this text- clearly it got my creative juices flowing! I felt inspired to say the least. I have many questions about the practicality of this method and the accountability for students, but I'm convinced enough to give it a shot.
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