Whole Class Novels

Here's the dilemma: to teach the whole-class novel or not to teach the whole-class novel. I've heard arguments for both sides.

Most of my teaching decisions align with the camp who believe that the whole-class novel belongs in the last century. Considering the diversity of our students, the diversity of their interests, and the competition technology poses in keeping students' interest, I've agreed that providing students choice in reading material reigns as best practice.

I've conducted literature circles (or book clubs, whichever term you prefer - I've never fully understood the difference between the two terms and have used the two fluidly in a single conversation) in both my 7th, 8th, and 9th grade classroom. The advantage of the literature circle is the ability to cater to the different interests of the 20+ students in the classroom. If the theme of the lit circle is WWII, then boys can opt to read a novel from the perspective of a soldier and girls can opt to read about star-crossed lovers during the war-time era. The previous sentence sounds too cliche, but I've found that this depiction of student choice is rather accurate.

The challenge of conducting a literature circle is... well... everything. First, I believe the teacher needs to have read and previewed each of the novels being read in the literature circles. This alone is a daunting task, especially for a new teacher who perhaps doesn't have any immediate titles tucked away as ideas let alone time. Second, it's a challenge to come up with a way to hold students accountable for the reading and to monitor their understanding of all of the different novels. I've had up to six different novels being read during a thematic literature circle unit. For anyone who has ran a literature circle, you understand this is a lot of comprehension checks to create and a lot of discussion questions to craft. My system has been tweaked just about every year. Third, it is an art to craft questions that encourage students from different literature circles to conduct a discussion, hitting thematic veins that run deeply in each novel.

I have worked with a colleague who adamantly maintained that the whole-class novel was the ONLY way to teach in order to ensure students' learning was deep and not wide. However, she is one of the few voices in the teaching field in 2017 who I have heard make an argument for whole-class novels. Therefore, I was intrigued by Ariel Sacks' text Whole Novels for the Whole Class: A Student-Centered Approach. 

I'm hoping to gather ideas about how to read a novel together as a class without stifling my voracious readers and exhausting my readers who struggle. I plan to share my major take-aways, and I'm sure I will be presented with some ideas to ponder.