Balancing a Whole-Class Novel with Readers-Writers Workshop

I have been focusing on implementing a readers-writers workshop in my secondary ELA classroom, utilizing (mostly) independent reading of self-selected novels. Last year, as I taught ninth grade, all of my classes read Romeo and Juliet together, and my Honors class and I also read Antigone together. We read each of these plays over the course of four to eight block periods. This year, my Special Education co-teacher and I “looped” with our students to tenth grade. We decided to review the elements of fiction utilizing Of Mice and Men rather than modeling with excerpts or short stories.

Our workshop approach is normally divided as follows:

·       15 minutes of independent reading

·       20 minutes of lecture on a mini-lesson

·       45 minutes of workshop where we can confer with students

THE PROBLEM

Our students selected novels on the second day of school. We implemented independent reading on Day 3. We wanted students to read in class daily. However, we also wanted to read Of Mice and Men out loud, together (my co-teacher and I really wanted to read as George and Lennie—if any publisher would like us to voice them, I think we’ve got it down!). This would take time. The problem then became that we would not have time to shift into workshop and that our block would be filled mostly with sedentary reading aloud (or listening).

OUR SOLUTION

I drew on my readings from Kate Roberts (@teachkate) and Mary Styslinger (@MaryStyslinger), as well as my own previous work. We began the unit by looking at nonfiction structures, features, and organization utilizing articles on disabilities. This was our lead-in to Of Mice and Men (rather than a historical focus on the Dust Bowl). In considering the cross-genre work promoted by Styslinger, Paul Hankins (@PaulWHankins) also suggested the new film Peanut Butter Falcon, which I may utilize in future years (once I view it myself):

New Hero’s Journey Go-To Film. The Peanut Butter Falcon is a literature teacher’s dream. Immediate “ladders” to Of Mice and Men. Lots to dig out. Use this film to #DisruptTexts both traditional unit and book shares.

— Paul W. Hankins (@PaulWHankins) September 2, 2019

We will be extending our look at how disability is presented in films by turning to Simon Birch next week. Perhaps Peanut Butter Falcon my be a great replacement for this film in the future.

So, we took an introductory disability studies approach to the novel. Then, we began to read out loud. I read for George (though sometimes read as the narrator) and my co-teacher read as Lennie. We then assigned parts otherwise (always asking for volunteers). I did not want to linger too long on the novel. It clips along at such a quick pace, I did not want us to lose momentum. So, we aimed for five school days: a chapter a day with the final two chapters on the fifth day. This meant we read for at least an hour a day.

Our schedules generally looked as follows:

·       10 minutes independent reading

·       10 minutes of a mini-lesson (reviews on characterization, setting, point of view, and tone and mood throughout)

·       60 minutes of read-aloud

I had initially planned to model a reading journal for students (they will be journaling on their independent reading moving forward), but time did not allow for this at the end of the class as we worked through the novel (sometimes rushing).

For the first time in my thirteen years of teaching, I had students turn-and-talk during the reading (thanks, Kate Roberts!) to discuss what I otherwise would have asked aloud as comprehension questions, but students also turned to talk about the mini-lesson of the day (What methods of characterization are being used? What mood are we supposed to feel based on the description of the physical setting?). We also have students set up in pods of four desks this year, so they have table-groups to turn-and-talk with.

The turn-and-talk procedure worked very well—some groups were slower to do so than others, but the one to two minutes of talking allowed me to listen in or intervene/prompt as necessary. Then, we’d pull back together, and continue reading. Some days, students took notes on characterization or setting, and other days they looked at a list of mood words and determined what the mood of the current paragraph/scene/page was. For the final two days, we removed independent reading and also skipped a mini-lesson: I wanted us to finish in five days (also, Day 5 of the novel was a Friday, and I did not want the gap of the weekend before we finished).

DEBRIEFING

So, did it work?

We were able to review basic elements of fiction (foreshadowing, characterization, tone and mood, setting, point-of-view, conflict) and complete the novel. We were not able to model journaling due to a lack of time. Students responded (by and large) very well to the whole-class read-aloud. My co-teacher and I stressed throughout that one of our goals was to show students how we think about a whole novel from beginning to end. We will using a community circle on Monday to more fully debrief on the ideas of disability, racism, and gender in the novella. While Marisa Thompson’s (@MarisaEThompson) TQE (Thoughts, Questions, Epiphanies) method would work well here, since it is the beginning of the year and I still want to build the community circle process, I will be foregoing it for now (to learn more on TQE, see Jennifer Gonzalez’s blog on Marisa’s procedures). I do appreciate that we finished the novel in a short time so that we can move forward with our work: students analyzing their own novels while we model with what we read from Of Mice and Men (and reviewed in our mini-lessons).

I did not like varying from our workshop model for a full week, but I think that flexibility is part of the model itself. The modeling of reading and analysis—and having students talk to one another about it—was helpful as we build our classroom community. The turn-and-talk procedure (which we plan to use during our mini-lesson segments of the schedule moving forward) prompted students to engage with thinking rather than being passive.

How do you best manage whole-class novels?