Novel Methods for Novel Studies
We love a novel study around here. It’s so fun to watch my students experience great books, and hearing them discuss what their favorite parts are is something that never grows old. I have several old standby novels that I love to teach (The Westing Game, Esperanza Rising, Stargirl, and The Phantom Tollbooth come to mind), but I’m always looking for new books that fit both our curriculum and the needs of my students.
In the past few years of teaching gifted students, I have found that there’s somewhat of a hole in the market for novel study curriculum that goes beyond basic level comprehension/vocabulary tasks. These studies are great for ensuring that students are scaffolded to be able to keep up when a novel might be challenging; but what about our gifted learners who are fully able to comprehend the basics, but need the opportunity for deeper-level thinking? To this end, I have started writing novel studies specifically for my students, targeting beyond basic understanding. Beginning with a universal theme in mind, I base opportunities for analysis on Kaplan’s icons of Depth and Complexity and VanTassel-Baska and Stambaugh’s Jacob’s Ladder thinking frameworks. I typically break the novel into segments, a few chapters at a time, and we work through each part together, synthesizing the parts into the whole based on the universal theme as a culmination. This approach has worked well for me in the limited blocks of time that I have with my students. I also find that it helps my speediest readers (you know the ones!) slow down enough to really appreciate the literature and gives the book the opportunity to make a lasting impact on the reader.
Recently though, I read an article that threw my perception of how to teach novels into a reflective rabbit hole. The author advocated that novels are works of art, and we cannot fully appreciate them until we have seen them in their entirety. She lays out a “whole novel” approach to teaching with novels that allows the students to read the entire book before being asked to discuss and analyze in any formal way. Students are provided a reading schedule and are asked to make annotations on sticky notes each day, helping them monitor their own reading process. At the end of the reading, the whole class comes together to discuss the novel in a fairly loose way. On the first pass, all students go around and get one chance to say something–anything–about the novel that they’d like to share. After that, the discussion is open for business and is basically student-directed. The author’s experience is that this leads to high-level discussion that often takes the direction that she would have guided her students toward regardless.
I have to say, this method intrigues me! I know my gifted students love the autonomy of being able to pace themselves (something they don’t get to do often enough), and I’d be interested to see how this could work with a group of students. It’s certainly not something I’ve ever even considered before, and I do like the structure and accountability of the traditional formatting provided by a novel study. I also find that it’s helpful to slowly guide my students in a specific direction from the outset, although I have no evidence that they wouldn’t get there on their own. I am curious to see who else has tried this method–what were your experiences? I’m planning to try this method with a small group soon, so be on the lookout for an update!
I’d love to hear from you: how do you do novel study? What are your favorite novels to teach?
