LoriD(& anyone else)......"how to" Literature Class Questions!

[Murrayshire]

My dd will be in 7th grade next school year. On my shelf we have tons of books, Lightning Literature 7th & 8th, Teaching the Classics, Deconstructing Penguins, and Figuratively Speaking.

 

Dd wants to involve other kids to join in for discussion, activities, and possibly watching movies to go along with the books. As you can see from above, I have some pretty good resources to do something like this. WHY can't I put something together?? My dd is not a voracious reader nor is she at the level of reading something like "The Hobbit," not yet anyway! So, I would have to keep this group of readers on a 5th to 7th grade reading level.

 

Do you think it is possible to use LL as a guide to use in a group setting? I would also want to keep using FS introducing a couple literary terms each week.

I guess I just need advice on how to begin this group, help setting up how frequently we meet, a book list with a variety of genres, and activities.

Has anyone started a literary literature discussion group with a bunch of middle schoolers? Could you give me some advice or some sort of plan to get me started?

Thanks in advance!😉

[rutheart]

I've been teaching a literature class for 9-12yos at my local co-op (Disclaimer: I love books, but I am not a lit person and am not sure how I got roped into teaching this class). I'm not using a curriculum for it. For fall semester, I picked out 7 novels, and had the kids read a book every 2-4 weeks (I told the parents it was okay if the book was done as a read aloud or audio book, since not all kids can read that fast on their own). I mostly picked books that I read myself as a child. I would reread the book, jotting down notes as I read, for discussion questions and related activities. Then I would spend an afternoon browsing the internet for more ideas. As long as you don't pick something obscure or too new, there are lots of free teaching resources. If you can't find anything on the book itself, you can always plan activities related to it. For example, when we read "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH", I had them do a few psychology experiments, so they could feel what it was like to be one of the rats in the lab. We also normally end up doing some kind of craft. When we read "The Indian in the Cupboard", they made a cupboard out of construction paper, with flaps opening so you could see what they stored inside.

 

My class is only one hour long, so we never have time to watch movies, but I would definitely do that otherwise. It's always fun to do book vs movie discussions.

 

Our fall titles were:

Frindle by Andrew Clements

The Borrowers by Mary Norton

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien

The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks

No Talking by Andrew Clements

 

For spring, so far I've only done "The Plant that Ate Dirty Socks" by Nancy McArthur. I'm currently working on "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

 

If you think you'd use any of those titles, I'd be happy to share what I ended up doing for my class.

 

(edited because I just realized the youngest kid is actually 9yo, time flies!)

Ruth

[Lori D.]

On 2/1/2015 at 11:38 AM, Murrayshire said:

Dd wants to involve other kids to join in for discussion, activities, and possibly watching movies to go along with the books. As you can see from above, I have some pretty good resources to do something like this.

Wow! Sounds like a GREAT idea! Lots of fun things you can do with a book club like this! Go for it and enjoy! 🙂 LOVE all of Rutheart's book ideas and how she runs her co-op class in the above post. Great stuff there to get you started.

Also, since DD has high level of interest and initiative here, I'd work with her, and let it be more student-run rather than parent-led (unless you're planning on making it more of a formal class with instruction). 🙂 In this case, the group would be more student-led as far as discussion, and your role would be support/organization: helping to line up matching activities/movies, maybe having a list of questions for back-up, maybe kicking it off with a 2-minute info blurb on a literary element, and being the home host. And moderating discussion, if needed. 
 

On 2/1/2015 at 11:38 AM, Murrayshire said:

Dd wants to involve other kids to join in for discussion, activities, and possibly watching movies to go along with the books. As you can see from above, I have some pretty good resources to do something like this. WHY can't I put something together??

Do you think it is possible to use LL as a guide to use in a group setting? I would also want to keep using FS introducing a couple literary terms each week.

JMO, but I think you are probably struggling to put something together because, while those are all super resources, they are geared for formal class/homeschool use, not an informal book club. 🙂

re: LL
Again, JMO, but I think the books would be above the level you are wanting to start with (LOTS of jargon, accents, and older vocabulary in several of the books). And while the literary lessons in LL are very gentle and make a great introduction to beginning literary analysis, I think it would be too formal for your goals, and not very much of LL would match up with what you described you want to include (i.e., activities, movies, etc.). And actually, not a lot of discussion questions in LL, either.

 

On 2/1/2015 at 11:38 AM, Murrayshire said:

I guess I just need advice on how to begin this group, help setting up how frequently we meet, a book list with a variety of genres, and activities... Could you give me some advice or some sort of plan to get me started?

How to set up and organize it will really depends on how much time other families have to include this in their schedule.

If you do it once a month, you could plan for an all-afternoon type of meeting -- say 2-3 hours, with 40 minutes to talk about the book,   20 minutes for a snack and socializing, and then an hour for a project/activity or two hours for a movie version. You could plan for 1 book a month, maybe 6-7 books total: 3 in the fall and 3-4 in the spring.

If you do it once every two weeks, that gives you the opportunity to do more books. But you would probably want to keep it shorter so you don't have to come up with as many activities -- maybe meet for 75-90 minutes for 40-45 minutes book discussion, 15 minutes snack/socializing, and then 15-30 minutes for a go-along game or activity.

Another option would be to meet two weeks in a row to cover one book, and then take a week or two off, and then meet for another two weeks in a row to cover one book. (That would work especially well if you want to read/discuss the book and then watch the movie.)

Will all the students be grade 7? I've been teaching some Lit. & Comp. classes to grades 7-12, and the 7th graders provide GREAT thoughts each week. It is a more formal class, so I send them home each week with some guided literary analysis types of questions to help them think through the work after reading it, so if you are wanting to discuss literary elements as part of this, you might consider sending out a 1-page "while reading" sheet to each student. For example, include a brief description of foreshadowing with an example, and ask them to look for an example of foreshadowing to share with the group.

Book ideas (gr. 5-7 level) -- I'll add on to Rutheart's great list (a number of these have movie versions, too):

realistic:
- Summer of the Monkeys (Rawls)
- Where the Red Fern Grows (Rawls) -- warning! dog dies!
- Sounder (Armstrong) -- warning! dog AND dad die!
- The Toothpaste Millionaire (Merrill)

humorous/tall tale
- The Reluctant Dragon (Grahame)
- By the Great Horn Spoon (Fleischman)
- The Pushcart War (Merrill)
- Holes (Sachar)
- Twenty One Balloons (Du Bois)

sci-fi:
- A Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle)
- Enchantress from the Stars (Engdahl) -- fantasy/sci-fi, can discuss alternating points of view
- The Green Book (Walsh)
- City of Ember (du Prau)

fantasy:
- Below the Root (Snyder)
- one of the Narnia books (Lewis)
- The Phantom Tollbooth (Juster)
- Ella Enchanted (Levine)
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)
- Secret of Platform 13 (Ibbotson)

"other world"
- Tuck Everlasting (Babbitt) -- realistic late 1800s setting, but with the possibility of immortality
- Gregor the Overlander (Collins) -- realistic modern times boy falls down into another world

adventure/survival
- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (O'Brien)
- The Incredible Journey (Burnford)
- The Cay (Taylor)
- Island of the Blue Dolphins (O'Dell)
- My Side of the Mountain (George)

mystery/detective
- From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Konigsburg)
- The Westing Game (Raskin)
- Case of the Baker Street Irregulars (Newman)
- "Red Headed League" -- short story, Sherlock Holmes (Doyle)

historical fiction
- Hittite Warrior (Williamson)
- The Bronze Bow (Speare)
- Adam of the Road (Grey)
- The Shakespeare Stealer (Blackwood)
- The Master Puppeteer (Paterson)
- I Am Regina (Keehn)
- A Gathering of Days (Blos)
- Bull Run (Fleischman) -- great for point of view discussion
- Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry (Taylor)
- Number the Stars (Lowry)

biography
- perhaps have them each select a person and read a biography and share for a 5-10 minute review about the book and the person, and have some ideas for questions that they can ask each other

For ideas for questions and discussion
Look for individual guides to go with each book (do a google search and see what you come up with). The Garlic Press Discovering Literature and Challenger guides  would be great. Also check out Glencoe Literature Library guides.

There have been a few past threads on book clubs/discussion with lots of great ideas, I'm just not finding them right now. I'll come back and link if I can find them. 🙂

- Book Club? -- general set-up ideas
- Tell me about your children's book clubs (or discussion groups) -- more general set-up ideas

For ideas for activities
- google search for each book "(name of book) activities", or, "(name of book) activity ideas", or "(name of book) middle school guide" -- etc.
- Lit Wits
- Want to help me plan a mystery? -- great activities to go with a mystery!

Edited January 26, 2019 by Lori D.

[Murrayshire]

I've been teaching a literature class for 9-12yos at my local co-op (Disclaimer: I love books, but I am not a lit person and am not sure how I got roped into teaching this class). I'm not using a curriculum for it. For fall semester, I picked out 7 novels, and had the kids read a book every 2-4 weeks (I told the parents it was okay if the book was done as a read aloud or audio book, since not all kids can read that fast on their own). I mostly picked books that I read myself as a child. I would reread the book, jotting down notes as I read, for discussion questions and related activities. Then I would spend an afternoon browsing the internet for more ideas. As long as you don't pick something obscure or too new, there are lots of free teaching resources. If you can't find anything on the book itself, you can always plan activities related to it. For example, when we read "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH", I had them do a few psychology experiments, so they could feel what it was like to be one of the rats in the lab. We also normally end up doing some kind of craft. When we read "The Indian in the Cupboard", they made a cupboard out of construction paper, with flaps opening so you could see what they stored inside.

 

My class is only one hour long, so we never have time to watch movies, but I would definitely do that otherwise. It's always fun to do book vs movie discussions.

 

Our fall titles were:

Frindle by Andrew Clements

The Borrowers by Mary Norton

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien

The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks

No Talking by Andrew Clements

 

For spring, so far I've only done "The Plant that Ate Dirty Socks" by Nancy McArthur. I'm currently working on "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

 

If you think you'd use any of those titles, I'd be happy to share what I ended up doing for my class.

 

(edited because I just realized the youngest kid is actually 9yo, time flies!)

Ruth

 

 

 

 

Thank you Rutheart for the ideas and book list!  I do like how you incorporate an activity to finalize the book.  

:)

 

[Murrayshire]

Wow! Sounds like a GREAT idea! Lots of fun things you can do with a book club like this! Go for it and enjoy! :)

LOVE all of Rutheart's book ideas and how she runs her co-op class in the above post. Great stuff there to get you started.

 

Also, since DD has high level of interest and initiative here, I'd work with her, and let it be more student-run rather than parent-led (unless you're planning on making it more of a formal class with instruction). :) In this case, the group would be more student-led as far as discussion, and your role would be support/organization: helping to line up matching activities/movies, maybe having a list of questions for back-up, maybe kicking it off with a 2-minute info blurb on a literary element, and being the home host. And moderating discussion, if needed. 

 

 

 

 

JMO, but I think you are probably struggling to put something together because, while those are all super resources, they are geared for formal class/homeschool use, not an informal book club. :)

 

re: LL

Again, JMO, but I think the books would be above the level you are wanting to start with (LOTS of jargon, accents, and older vocabulary in several of the books). And while the literary lessons in LL are very gentle and make a great introduction to beginning literary analysis, I think it would be too formal for your goals, and not very much of LL would match up with what you described you want to include (i.e., activities, movies, etc.). And actually, not a lot of discussion questions in LL, either.

 

 

 

 

How to set up and organize it will really depends on how much time other families have to include this in their schedule.

 

If you do it once a month, you could plan for an all-afternoon type of meeting -- say 2-3 hours, with 40 minutes to talk about the book,   20 minutes for a snack and socializing, and then an hour for a project/activity or two hours for a movie version. You could plan for 1 book a month, maybe 6-7 books total: 3 in the fall and 3-4 in the spring.

 

If you do it once every two weeks, that gives you the opportunity to do more books. But you would probably want to keep it shorter so you don't have to come up with as many activities -- maybe meet for 75-90 minutes for 40-45 minutes book discussion, 15 minutes snack/socializing, and then 15-30 minutes for a go-along game or activity.

 

Another option would be to meet two weeks in a row to cover one book, and then take a week or two off, and then meet for another two weeks in a row to cover one book. (That would work especially well if you want to read/discuss the book and then watch the movie.)

 

Will all the students be grade 7? I've been teaching some Lit. & Comp. classes to grades 7-12, and the 7th graders provide GREAT thoughts each week. It is a more formal class, so I send them home each week with some guided literary analysis types of questions to help them think through the work after reading it, so if you are wanting to discuss literary elements as part of this, you might consider sending out a 1-page "while reading" sheet to each student. For example, include a brief description of foreshadowing with an example, and ask them to look for an example of foreshadowing to share with the group.

 

 

Book ideas (gr. 5-7 level) -- I'll add on to Rutheart's great list (a number of these have movie versions, too):

 

realistic:

- Summer of the Monkeys (Rawls)

- Where the Red Fern Grows (Rawls) -- warning! dog dies!

- Sounder (Armstrong) -- warning! dog AND dad die!

- The Toothpaste Millionaire (Merrill)

 

humorous/tall tale

- The Reluctant Dragon (Grahame)

- By the Great Horn Spoon (Fleischman)

- The Pushcart War (Merrill)

- Holes (Sachar)

- Twenty One Balloons (Du Bois)

 

sci-fi:

- A Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle)

- Enchantress from the Stars (Engdahl) -- fantasy/sci-fi, can discuss alternating points of view

- The Green Book (Walsh)

- City of Ember (du Prau)

 

fantasy:

- Below the Root (Snyder)

- one of the Narnia books (Lewis)

- The Phantom Tollbooth (Juster)

- Ella Enchanted (Levine)

- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)

- Secret of Platform 13 (Ibbotson)

 

"other world"

- Tuck Everlasting (Babbitt) -- realistic late 1800s setting, but with the possibility of immortality

- Gregor the Overlander (Collins) -- realistic modern times boy falls down into another world

 

adventure/survival

- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (O'Brien)

- The Incredible Journey (Burnford)

- The Cay (Taylor)

- Island of the Blue Dolphins (O'Dell)

- My Side of the Mountain (George)

- Nim's Island (Orr)

 

mystery/detective

- From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Konigsburg)

- The Westing Game (Raskin)

- Case of the Baker Street Irregulars (Newman)

- "Red Headed League" -- short story, Sherlock Holmes (Doyle)

 

historical fiction

- Hittite Warrior (Williamson)

- The Bronze Bow (Speare)

- Adam of the Road (Grey)

- The Shakespeare Stealer (Blackwood)

- The Master Puppeteer (Paterson)

- I Am Regina (Keehn)

- A Gathering of Days (Blos)

- Bull Run (Fleischman) -- great for point of view discussion

- Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry (Taylor)

- Number the Stars (Lowry)

 

biography

- perhaps have them each select a person and read a biography and share for a 5-10 minute review about the book and the person, and have some ideas for questions that they can ask each other

 

 

For ideas for questions and discussion

Look for individual guides to go with each book (do a google search and see what you come up with). The Garlic Press Discovering Literature and Challenger guides  would be great. Also check out Glencoe Literature Library guides.

 

There have been a few past threads on book clubs/discussion with lots of great ideas, I'm just not finding them right now. I'll come back and link if I can find them. :)

- Book Club? -- general set-up ideas

- Tell me about your children's book clubs (or discussion groups) -- more general set-up ideas

 

 

For ideas for activities

- google search for each book "(name of book) activities", or, "(name of book) activity ideas", or "(name of book) middle school guide" -- etc.

- Lit Wits

- Want to help me plan a mystery? -- great activities to go with a mystery!

 

Lori, you have given me A LOT to think about.  You definitely made me realize that I am way over thinking this.  Granted, this reading group will be my 7th grader's literature for the year.  So I do want to challenge her even if it is done informally.

I just wanted to pop in and thank you!  I will come back later and chat more......it's a busy day here!!

;)

[mom31257]

Wow, I feel like the most honored person in the world! Lori D. linked one of my threads in her post.   Thank you, Lori!!!! 

 

I have lead a book club for 3.5 years now. The first 2 years were a book discussion in conjunction with watching a movie of the book. While I loved it, we have some very conservative families in our group. I really didn't want a struggle over movie content, which I knew would come with more advanced books. I decided to go with a unit study approach doing science experiments, arts/crafts, food, etc., after our discussion.

 

As far as literary analysis, I've really enjoyed that part of it. I went through DP, FS, and Teaching the Classics. I basically followed the order of TTC to introduce the major parts of literature. I taught 2-4 additional literary terms each meeting, but I chose those based on good examples in the books. 

 

Here is the order I followed for the basics:

Plot, Conflict, and Climax (discussed all of these the first time because they work together, and I wanted them to be able to talk about those from then on)

 

Setting (looked beyond place, included time period, economic conditions, geographic surroundings, etc.; discussed things like if the story could have happened in any other place or time and how it would be different)

 

Characters-Protagonist & Antagonist, later I added in terms including round/flat characters, dynamic/static characters, foil

 

Theme- later discussed the differences in mood and theme

 

Here is a graphic organizer I made for them to fill out after we'd covered all of those. 

 

After I'd taught them a few figurative language devices, I did this exercise. 

 

At the end of that year, I asked them to create menus for a "Figurative Language Cafe". They were to use figurative language to title all of their menu selections and if they had descriptions. They had the idea to each bring a dish from their menu for a party the last day. It was so much fun! Here is a sheet I gave them for examples. 

 

Over the last year and a half, I've included as many literary terms as I can find. I always go over the basics, though, at the beginning of each year because we usually have new people. I still talk about those with each book as well. I have found there are kids who will never answer when I'm discussing things with the whole group. Each time, I try to have a few open-ended questions which I give them after I've put them in groups of 2-3. They choose a person to share the group's responses after the discussion. I ask things like this, but I also give some that are very specific to the book:

 

Who was your favorite or least favorite character?

What was your favorite or least favorite scene from the book?

Did you like the ending or would you have like for it to have ended in a different manner? How?

 

 

I hope it goes well for you. I have to say it has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. I have a math degree, so I was intimidated by literature. Learning literary analysis turned literature into a puzzle to be solved, a problem to be figured out, which was right up my alley! 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lori D.]

On 2/2/2015 at 3:00 PM, mom31257 said:

Wow, I feel like the most honored person in the world! Lori D. linked one of my threads in her post.   Thank you, Lori!!!! 

LOL!  :smilielol5:
 

On 2/2/2015 at 3:00 PM, mom31257 said:

... I decided to go with a unit study approach doing science experiments, arts/crafts, food, etc., after our discussion.

...I went through DP, FS, and Teaching the Classics. I basically followed the order of TTC to introduce the major parts of literature. I taught 2-4 additional literary terms each meeting, but I chose those based on good examples in the books. 

Here is the order I followed for the basics:

Plot, Conflict, and Climax (discussed all of these the first time because they work together, and I wanted them to be able to talk about those from then on)

Setting (looked beyond place, included time period, economic conditions, geographic surroundings, etc.; discussed things like if the story could have happened in any other place or time and how it would be different)

Characters-Protagonist & Antagonist, later I added in terms including round/flat characters, dynamic/static characters, foil

Theme- later discussed the differences in mood and theme

Here is a graphic organizer I made for them to fill out after we'd covered all of those. 

After I'd taught them a few figurative language devices, I did this exercise. 

At the end of that year, I asked them to create menus for a "Figurative Language Cafe". They were to use figurative language to title all of their menu selections and if they had descriptions. They had the idea to each bring a dish from their menu for a party the last day. It was so much fun! Here is a sheet I gave them for examples. 

Over the last year and a half, I've included as many literary terms as I can find. I always go over the basics, though, at the beginning of each year because we usually have new people. I still talk about those with each book as well. I have found there are kids who will never answer when I'm discussing things with the whole group. Each time, I try to have a few open-ended questions which I give them after I've put them in groups of 2-3. They choose a person to share the group's responses after the discussion. I ask things like this, but I also give some that are very specific to the book:

Who was your favorite or least favorite character?

What was your favorite or least favorite scene from the book?

Did you like the ending or would you have like for it to have ended in a different manner? How?

 

:hurray: There you go! Amy just gave you a complete outline for "how to"! 🙂

And for ideas for adding on to her 3 questions (at the end of her post):
- Handout: What is Literary Analysis and When to Teach It -- scroll down for SWB's list of questions
- Specific literary analysis questions (free; webpage)
- Socratic Questions for Kids (free; webpage)
- How do you come up with questions to prompt discussion/analysis? -- past thread
- How do you encourage independent thinking and discussion? -- past thread

Edited January 26, 2019 by Lori D.

[Murrayshire]

You ladies ROCK!! I can't thank you enough!

 

Amy, you put your heart and so much time in this group. Is this something you offered at no cost?

You all have been helpful! I'm excited to share it with my dd. 😀

[mom31257]

You ladies ROCK!! I can't thank you enough!

 

Amy, you put your heart and so much time in this group. Is this something you offered at no cost?

You all have been helpful! I'm excited to share it with my dd. 😀

 

You are so welcome! 

 

Yes, I do offer it at no cost. I sponsor it in our homeschool support group. The moms come and stay, so they all help out including bringing supplies. I started it because ds was not turning into the avid reader his sister always was, so I wanted motivation/outside accountability for making him read good books. I also love planning and teaching, so I hope to teach in some capacity when I'm done homeschooling.

 

ETA: I have to say I could never do most of the things I do without this group online. I've learned so much here and find so many resources and ideas which make leading groups like mine much more successful. 

[Kareni]

I'll just toss out a resource for you and possibly the students to read:

 

How to Read Literature Like a Professor: For Kids by Thomas C. Foster

and his book for adults:

 

How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Murrayshire]

Thank you Kareni!😉

[Nicholas_mom]

WOW- what awesome post!  Thank you ladies :)