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Out of the darkness comes light like a flash: Teaching long novels - help?

tnteacher:

everyfiredies:

I just finished reading Jane Eyre for the first time and I adored it. I loved it so much. One of the units I’m envisioning for my seniors this year relates to gender, culture, and language, and I think Jane Eyre would be a great text to explore feminism.

Last year was my first full year of…

While teaching Hunger Games to 6th graders isn’t the same as teaching Jane Eyre to (I’m presuming) high schoolers, I’ll answer your questions anyway. Maybe it will be helpful!

- How do you structure units around novels like this? How much reading do you assign for homework? (I realize this may depend on the class and the novel) How and when do you have class discussions (once or twice a week? Each day?)

When I read the novel, I read it with my class, so there was no reading for homework. My students don’t have the funding to buy the book, and having their parents buy it or check it out of our very limited library was impossible. I also had 160 students last year, so it just wasn’t possible. I structured the unit around a kit I bought off Teachers Pay Teachers, from the amazing Tracee Orman. I loooove this kit. It featured activities for every single chapter tied into Common Core Standards. Wonderful stuff. We had class discussion almost at the end of every chapter, per the questions included in the unit.

- How do you make sure students don’t just read SparkNotes or CliffsNotes? Or, do you care?

Probably not very applicable, since I doubt my students even know what those are. But reading the book in class eliminated the need for students to seek out SparkNotes or CliffsNotes. But I don’t think I’d care. The students will be exposed to the literature, and whether it’s the novel itself or snippets in CliffsNotes, I’m not sure it matters.

- Do you have students take notes while reading? Do you prescribe a type of notes (Cornell Notes, for example) or let them choose? Do you check/give credit for notes?

We did take notes while reading, similar to Cornell style except reversed. I provided the questions for them to think about answering while reading. We also did vocabulary and took notes on that. I did not check or give credit for notes besides a cursory glance to make sure they were keeping up.

- Do you give reading quizzes to motivate students to actually do the reading? 

Yep. A stipulation from my principal for reading a book in Language Arts was to tie in reading skills, and checking for understanding was a part of that.

- Do you have essential questions to help focus discussions?

Always. My students are too young to do much else. Just the idea of discussions is new to them.

- What recommendations do you have for a teacher new to discussing/teaching longer works?

I feel like breaking the story up into chunks and including activities and checks for understanding is essential to helping the book flow. Students will get burnt out and tired of the story if all the do is read for days and days with an occasional activity bone thrown their way.