As English teachers, we know we should teach a novel but the question is “How to teach a novel unit?” There seems to be so much to consider when planning a novel unit. And it always seems like a daunting task. Sometimes it feels easier to just keep doing what we are doing. And keep teaching the same novels because we have years of resources and expertise to help ease the burden of planning. However, if you are tired of your novel unit perhaps now is the time to start.
If you are excited about the idea of starting a new novel with your students. But you do not want to have to start over from scratch, I have just the resource for you. In my Novel Unit Activities resource, take the time and the stress out of the creation of the unit with this resource. In this print or digital resource, students have graphic organizers for the plot diagram and nine literary elements. Students also have five different theme trackers to use while reading the novel.
Why Create a Novel Study Unit
What is a Novel Study?
Before we dive into how to plan your novel unit, I want to start with what I consider a novel study to be. There are lots of different ways that educators teach a novel but they have different purposes.
For our first novel unit in my classroom, I chose a novel study. A novel study focuses on reading comprehension and higher-level thinking skills. I am not quizzing my students on what happens in each chapter or asking them questions about plot details. In our study, we are looking to analyze the deeper meaning of the text, so my students look to find the major themes of the text, the literary elements, and the deeper meaning. The setup of the unit is to mimic the college-level discussions we have English teachers know so well from our own schooling.
I want my students to read a text and be able to discuss it in all different ways. I want my students to practice analyzing the text every day that they interact with it and record their thoughts in different ways to help ensure that they are truly ready to write a literary analysis essay at the end of the novel study.
Other Options for How to Teach a Novel Unit
Option #1: Literature Circles
Differing from a novel study, literature circles focus heavily on small group discussions. In a literature circle, students are each assigned a role during their group discussions each day. Normally, each group has a leader, a historian, a questioner, an analyzer, and a summarizer. Before each reading, students are given specific prompts for their role. During their literature circle time, the leader will help to facilitate the discussion and take notes for the group. Each other member will share their insights and observations in turn. After each discussion, each group member evaluates the others within the group to better help you assign a discussion grade. Then before their next reading students rotate roles and begin the process over again.
Option #2: Book Clubs
Unlike the formal setup of a literature circle, book clubs are established to allow student choice as much as possible. Students normally have a book-tasting day where they learn about the different options available and then choose their top choices. Once they have been placed into groups, students are in control. They set their reading schedule and determine what is discussed each day in their group. You can still provide activities for each group. But the purpose of a book club is to allow the students to take ownership of their own reading comprehension.
How I Teach a Novel Unit in My Classroom
In my own English 10 World Literature classroom, I choose my second unit of the semester to be a novel study unit. I find that since the goal of my novel unit is to write a literary analysis paper, a novel study allows me the flexibility to have whole group, small group, and individual discussions about themes as we read the novel together.
This semester I have chosen Abi Dare’s novel The Girl with the Louding Voice. If you have not had a chance to read it, I highly recommend it! It tells the story of a young Nigerian girl who faces the stereotypical struggles of her country and attempts to break free from those cyclical beliefs through the use of education and creating her own louding voice that the world will hear.
For my unit, I give my students the four major themes of the novel. And I assign each student one of the four on which to focus. As I read the text aloud each day, students are searching for examples of just their assigned theme. After the reading, students will post their individual findings on a discussion board. Then, they meet with their theme groups to have a small group discussion. By the end of the unit, my students have tons of text evidence for their theme. This setup allows them to easily start writing their first literary analysis essay at the end of the novel unit.
If you want to see how I recommend teaching literary analysis essay writing, check out my blog post HERE.
How To Teach A Novel
Step #1: Set Your Purpose for Your Novel Unit
Everything we do in our curriculum has to be planned with intention. Even before finding that perfect novel, you need to set your purpose for the unit. One thing that I suggest doing is taking at looking at your grade level standards. Then map out what standards you already teach in your units. If any standards are not being used or could be covered in more depth, you can start there for your unit purpose.
One suggestion is to set the unit for one specific standard that is your primary focus. For example, my novel study focuses on the Common Core standard CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.2. This standard asks students to determine the theme of the text so that is always the main focus.
However, I want to be able to teach multiple standards. So, I also create a list of secondary standards that can be taught and practiced in the novel activities that we do throughout the novel unit.
The last thing to consider with your purpose is choosing to include a novel unit theme. While you can just have your unit focus on a novel, perhaps there is a specific lesson/theme you want to reiterate to the students. For example, instead of just teaching The Great Gatsby, your unit theme is “The American Dream”. While not always necessary, adding a theme to your novel unit can be extremely helpful, especially when choosing your text(s).
Step #2: Choose Your Novel
Now that you have your focus, you can choose a novel that fits well into your unit purpose. When choosing a novel there are several factors to consider.
Demonstration of Your Chosen Standard(s): The first step in the novel choosing process is to find a novel that demonstrates your standard(s) easily. You want your students to have lots of material within the text to apply to your purpose. Find a list of five novels that you think work the best for your purpose to get started.
Grade Level Appropriate: An easy trap to fall into is choosing a great novel for your purpose just to realize that your novel does not match the reading level of your students. If you are debating between novel titles and one novel feels on level or slightly under and another feels like a bit of a challenge for your students., I always choose the challenge.
Engagement: You definitely want a story that grabs your students’ attention and is a story where the students become invested in the characters and their stories. The writing style and modernity of the novel are two factors to also consider. Don’t be afraid to teach a novel that no one else is teaching. You can start the trend!
Class Purpose Alignment: Another factor to consider is the overall purpose of your course. For example, for my 10th grade novel study unit, I need to align the novel to World Literature so I searched for a novel that highlighted the culture and beliefs of somewhere else in the world while still demonstrating themes that my students could relate to as well.
Novel Availability: When searching for a novel to fit your unit, availability is a major factor. Looking at your list of novel options, see if any of the titles are already available at your school. If not, do not get discouraged. You have lots of options for acquiring novels for your unit.
- Consider Small Groups. To help get you started, you may want to consider allowing students a few options for novels that meet your unit purpose. It is much easier to find five copies of a novel than 30 copies.
- Ask for Funds. Go to your department chair and administration and see if there is any room in the budget for you to purchase a class set of a new novel. You may have to wait to start your new unit until the new school year but it will be worth it for a new class set.
- Write a Grant. My district offers several grants through our education foundation. Each year, I write a grant to ask for materials and training for my classroom. I have earned a few class sets this way!
- Lean on Your Librarian. With enough notice, you may be able to borrow enough copies from all over to have your class set for your new unit.
- Create an Amazon Wishlist. Don’t be afraid to ask friends and families to help contribute to your class set. Time your list requests right before school starts or at Christmas time when people are in the giving mood.
- Ask for Parental Help. In my Honors classes, I ask my students to purchase the novel themselves if they are able because they can mark up the text just like we do in college-level classes. (That is how I sell it to parents). While not required, a lot of students enjoy having their own copy of the novel. They also feel like they are breaking the rules by highlighting it. After the unit is over, I ask students if they are not going to read the novel again to donate their novel to my library.
Step #3: Design Your Final Assessment
Once you know your purpose for the unit, you are ready to start at the end of the unit. It’s so critical to plan with the end in mind so you know where you want your students to finish. This will also help you create activities throughout the unit to support your final assessment.
In my unit, my students are focusing on identifying themes. And, my final assessment is their first literary analysis essay focusing on analyzing a theme in a novel. With this purpose in mind, all of my activities will align with these two main concepts to learn: identifying and analyzing themes in formal writing.
You are not required to end a novel unit with an essay! That may seem like the go-to assessment and it may work for your purpose and curriculum. However, feel free to move away from the essay if you already have a strong essay unit. Students love variety and having many different ways to showcase their learning is key to keeping your students engaged.
Step #4: Map Out Your Novel Unit Plan Timeline
The next step in this novel unit plan process is to map out the unit length. Grab your calendar and take a look at home much time you want to dedicate to this unit. Take into account any holidays, special days at schools, and interruptions that will definitely adjust your schedule.
When I plan my novel study unit, I give myself a month for this unit. I teach 80-minute classes since I am on a semester schedule. Furthermore, I wanted to dedicate time each day to read the novel aloud with my students because we are reading a more difficult text. I average 18-25 pages of reading per day. My novel has lots of chapters and almost 400 pages.
While we aren’t creating all of our activities yet or planning the reading schedule itself. You do want to consider how long you will need to read the novel, whether will students read at home or all together, and how many days you will need for the students to complete your final assessment. Once you have those numbers, you can look in your curriculum and dates on the calendar to map out the unit. I like to start on a Monday and finish on a Friday with a weekend for the students to finish the final assessment. That does not always work out but it helps in students’ brains as well.
Step #5: Create Your Novel Analysis Activities
The part that can take the most time is planning out the activities for the novel study. Starting with the end date of your unit, you want to determine how many days you want your students to work on this final assessment.
Now, I recommend going to the beginning of the unit plan and dedicating a day for a novel introduction to start the unit. Here is where I give the students’ background information, have them do an opener activity to peak their attention, and pass out the novels.
The next step is to plan out how long you will need to read the novel. You may want to read out loud each day or have students read at home or maybe you want to mix and match. Take the length of the novel and divide it into chunks for daily reading. In my class, I average 18-25 pages a day for my students. Once you have decided on your format, add the reading days to the calendar.
Reading the novel is not enough for your students. So you need to make sure for each day’s lesson you also include activities to help students practice the standards that you want to focus on in your unit. I assign them a theme at the beginning of the novel. Each day they have time to write, analyze, and discuss examples of their theme. We also have timed theme paragraphs, Socratic seminars, and literary elements searches. Not sure what activities you should do for your unit, check out my Novel Unit Activities for ready-to-use activities for any novel.
Step #6: Teach Your Novel Unit and Tweak Your Ideas
Finally, the best part of the unit plan: you get to teach your novel with your students. I normally print out the unit calendar with all the activity notes at the start of the unit. At the end of each day, I take a few moments to reflect and add notes on what went well and what I can improve for next time. I also remain flexible so if something takes too long or if we need more activities I can adjust the schedule as we read. The unit is never going to be perfect the first time you teach it and it probably won’t be perfect for quite a while but your students are never going to know that!
How to Differentiate Your Novel Unit
Option #1: Choose multiple novels
An easy way to accommodate all your students’ needs is to have different novels for small groups. This way you can choose a novel that fits the student’s needs and they can still complete all activities and final assessment with their given text.
Option #2: Build in time for small group instruction
If you want to have all students the same novel, you can schedule small group instruction time each day. While other students are reading independently, you could have your small group read together with you to help students better understand the text. You can rotate each day which group you meet with so that everyone has a chance for personalized instruction with you.
Option #3: Adapt your activities and final assessment
If you have all the students read together, another option for differentiation is to adapt your activities to fit your student’s needs and abilities. By having the students read together, it does not become obvious to the students who have different assignments. You can also make more of your activities small group or whole group instruction to help.
Even More Ways to Teach a Novel
Planning a novel unit can feel overwhelming but it does not have to feel that way. Use my six steps to make the planning process a fun and enjoyable experience. After you plan your unit, I would love to hear how it goes! I am always looking for new novels to teach with my students and new activities to teach with a novel.
If you start to plan your novel unit and realize you aren’t sure where to start or don’t have enough time to map it all out this year, check out my Novel Unit Activities. I have activities that work for any novel so all you need to do is choose your novel and set the schedule. I even include an example unit map so you can just add in your novel pages each day and be done. Once you have planned your first novel study, I am confident that teachers are going to come to you asking how to teach a novel unit because you will be the expert!
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