What a "Novel" Idea
I have always loved reading children's literature books. From Where the Read Fern Grows to Gary Paulson's classic novel Hatchet, I have a growing collection of children's novels for my future classroom one day. I just recently finished reading Wonder by R. J. Palacio, which is what got me thinking about this specific post.
I still have memories of my sixth grade ELA class. My teacher, Ms. Pittman, had a list of six required books for the year which seemed like a daunting task at first, but I fell IN LOVE with this class. Ms. Pittman assigned reading for us to do at home, but rather than reading from textbooks and doing worksheets we read from novels and learned about story structure, plot, literary devices, characterization. You name it, she found it in our books! I still have all of my six grade copies of those books, written in, highlighted, and certainly well loved (especially because my younger sister used some of them for her class two years later).
I realize now that Ms. Pittman taught and covered content standards through the texts we were reading and the storyline of the novels kept us motivated. She selected a variety of genres so everyone had a novel they enjoyed the most. She transformed her teaching style and our learning style using literature.
Unfortunately, with the new Common Core Standards, a HUGE push has been made for an increase in informational text instruction. Novel studies are NOT outdated and can still be used in classrooms! Here is a little research I dug up on the benefits of novel studies in the classroom:
Incorporating Novel Studies and Sticking with the Standards
Ryan McCarty writes on the Teaching Channel blog about how teachers can strategically use novel studies to teach common core standards, including those about informational texts.
1. Use them as anchor texts
You can model entire units after novels if you select the right book. Focus your unit on a central theme, question, or even a time period. This teaches students that the content the book teaches is more important than minute details in the story. In addition, this allows you to pull supporting texts that can be used in class as well. These supporting texts can be informational texts that explore your unit theme in more detail.
The first book that comes to mind when I think "anchor text" is Bud Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. This novel about a young boy named Buddy living during the great depression has won both the Newbery and Corretta Scott King Award. His character is charming and the encounters he has as he searches for his father throughout the lesson leave you wanting to read more. This novel could be used as an anchor book for a study on historical fiction, the Great Depression, and also covers topics such as race, poverty, compassion, kindness, and family.
During my practicum experiences in school I developed an integrated lesson for 6th grade language arts and social studies based on this novel. To see the lesson click HERE.
2. Close Reading
Novel studies can move students beyond recall questions when reading a text. Close reading may mean that the students has to read the passage multiple times. It may mean that they read it while looking for literary devices and try to figure out how they transform the writing. It may mean they read a paragraph with a particular question in mind, look to extract the answer from the text. All of these cases require reading comprehension skills and can be taught in depth with explicit teacher modeling and instruction.
To read McCarty's entire article click HERE.
Novel List
Here is the beginning of a list of novels to use for novel studies in the classroom. It is a very humble beginning, but it is definitely a start! Help me grow my list by adding your favorite title in the comments!
Bud Not Buddy
The Watson's go to Birmingham
Wonder
Out of the Dust
The Giver
Tuck Everlasting
Hatchet
Secret Letters from 0-10
Esperanza Rising
Now it's your turn! Comment below...
