330: Routines that aren’t Boring for Whole Class Novels

If you’ve ever felt like you were stuck in a rut doing the same thing day after day, I’ve got a quick mindset shift to help. I do NOT want you to give up on whole class novels, so let’s talk about how to make them work.  In theory, whole class novels are the bread and butter of the English classroom. But if you struggle to get students to read at home and you’re finding the daily routine of covering a few pages every day a total slog, I hear you. You might have heard me talk about this with Amanda from Mud & Ink Teaching last year on the pod, and I really appreciated her ideas, which, combined with hearing from lots of teachers trying to figure out how to run a whole class novel unit successfully, have led me to think even more about this. So here’s my suggestion - create days of the week that are focused on different things, and give that whole class novel a break sometimes. Sounds pretty simple, right? Too simple? Hear me out.  I’ve always been amazed at just how many things English teachers are supposed to cover, and going through every standard from 7th grade ELA to 12th grade ELA last year when I was creating planning materials for The Lighthouse just drove that point home. No doubt you’re trying to figure out how to advance your students’ work in vocabulary, writing forms, reading comprehension, public speaking, and listening. Plus, you’re a creative teacher who wants them to be engaged in real world work with an authentic audience.  Making a shift away from covering each night’s reading the next day in class will help you move forward across your priorities, and give your students more time to read in between text-centered classes.   Maybe on Mondays you spend fifteen minutes on choice reading and then you’re working on podcasts related to the essential question of your whole class novel. Tuesdays you’re doing a quick reading check-in activity and then a Harkness discussions on the chapters students have read across the previous few days on their own. Wednesdays might be focused on 15 minutes of choice reading and then  writing practice, trying a variety of creative prompts around short stories, poems, audio clips, and articles related, again, to the themes of the whole class novel but read right there in class so you know everyone is on the same page. Thursdays might be a deep dive into the whole class novel with small groups or partners engaging in activities like close reading, reader’s theater, mini-debates, theme one-pagers, or whatever else you’re excited to do related to the novel. Then Friday could be for First Chapter Fridays, 15 minutes of choice reading, and some vocabulary work.  This is just one imagined example of how you could structure a week with plenty of variety. The bottom line is, you don’t need to talk about your whole class novel every day to DO a whole class novel.    Go Further:  Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram.  Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the ‘gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!   

Om Podcasten

Want to love walking into your ELA classroom each day? Excited about innovative strategies like PBL, escape rooms, hexagonal thinking, sketchnotes, one-pagers, student podcasting, genius hour, and more? Want a thriving choice reading program and a shelf full of compelling diverse texts? You're in the right place! Here you'll find interviews with top authors from the ELA field, workshops with strategies you can use in class immediately, and quick tips to ignite your English teacher creativity. Love teaching poetry? Explore blackout poems, book spine poems, I am from poems, performance poetry, lessons for contemporary poets, and more. Excited to get started with hexagonal thinking? Find out how to build your first deck of hexagons, guide your students through their first discussion, and even expand into hexagonal one-pagers. Into visual learning? Me too! Learn about sketchnotes, one-pagers, and the writing makerspace. Want to get your students podcasting? Get the top technology recs you need to make it happen, and find out what tips a podcaster would give to students starting out. Wish your students would fall for choice reading? Explore top titles and how to fund them, learn to make your library more appealing, and find out how to be a top P.R. agent for books in your classroom. In it for the interviews? Fabulous! Find out about project-based-learning, innovative school design, what really helps kids learn deeply, design thinking, how to choose diverse texts, when to scaffold sketchnotes lessons, building your first writing makerspace, cultivating writer's notebooks, getting started with genius hour, and so much more, from our wonderful guests. Here at The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, discover you're not alone as a creative English teacher. You're part of a vast community welcoming students to their next escape room, rolling out contemporary poetry and reading aloud on First Chapter Fridays, engaging kids with social media projects and real-world ELA units. As your host (hi, I'm Betsy), I'm here to help you ENJOY your days at school and feel inspired by all the creative ways to teach both contemporary works and the classics your school may be pushing. I taught ELA at the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade levels both in the United States and overseas for almost a decade, and I didn't always get support for my creativity. Now I'm here to make sure YOU get the creative support you deserve, and it brings me so much joy. Welcome to The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies!