I think all new English teachers love the idea of the novel study. I did. I still do. However, I have picked up some skills and strategies along the way that have made my novel units much more enjoyable for both me and my students. In my first year of teaching in 2010, I was instructed by my district pacing guide to teaching Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor to my sixth-grade students. I was at the district alternative middle school that involved a heavily transient population that struggled with reading. I think we studied that book for almost 3 months because we couldn’t move as a group through the novel. I had an idea in my head, I wanted to finish the idea to the end, and I was determined to manifest that moment of talking about a book happen in my first-year classroom. It didn’t happen. Now, it is a story I tell my pre-service teachers when they come into my room to observe my classroom during novel units. A novel study should never be a tool for torture.

I still teach Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; however, my novel units are designed completely different from when I started teaching. I also know when it is okay to give up on something if it is not working. No teacher I know wants to be pegged as a “book quitter,” but there are times when we, as teachers, need to quit books, practice, and strategies that we have been doing to discover a deeper level of learning on the other side. Perhaps one of the best parts about being a teacher of English is the infamous novel study unit. From choosing books to share with students to figuring out how to shape the ins and outs of each day of class, the novel unit remains a joy to teach and a complicated mess. This post will walk you through all the things I think about when it comes to teaching a novel to a group of students. I also throw in some examples at the end of the post for you to check out in both general and accelerated classes.

Looking at these documents, you may think I am a little bit crazy. I am okay with that. However, I am excited to have a go at this project with my third hour group. I am constantly evaluating how I end a novel unit, and I enjoy reflecting on the type of paper writing I express as important to my students. When my grade-level colleague and I attended MCTE in October and listened to Kelly Gallagher, we got excited about the idea of a multi-genre project with our sixth graders. We teach a variety of paper genres throughout the school year, including the five-paragraph essay, but we wanted students to get a chance to be innovative and inquisitive about the world around them.