I have always loved books. One of my favourite parts of being a teacher is diving into storybooks and children’s novels. Class novels are a fantastic way to get your students interested in reading. They also provide a great opportunity to build community in your classroom. There is something special about sitting down as a group and all reading from the same book.

Over the years, I’ve always tried to get the students involved in the choice of novel. If it’s not one of our school novel sets I contact the local library and more often than not, they’ll find a set for us to borrow. The only problem with doing this is that sometimes, it’s hard to find discussion material or resources to go with each novel. I was tired of creating worksheets to go with each chapter or flicking back through old novel activities and trying to adapt them to the current class novel – hence why I created my General Novel Study Activity Guide!

5 tips for getting the most out of your Novel Study!

1. Keep the novel study activity content page close by. As you are reading, scan through the contents and choose which activity goes best with the chapter you are reading.
2. Give your students control – send the novel study guide home as homework and get them to complete one activity a night or one activity a week as you read.
3. Go digital! This novel study also comes with a digital Google Slides version. Send home the editable guide for digital homework on Seesaw or Google Classroom.

4. Break it up into sections. I find doing a few days on setting, followed by a couple of lessons on character is always a nice way to begin a novel study! You will find all the different themes listed on the contents page at the beginning!

You can find my general novel study that can be used with any class novel by clicking here!

I’d love to know what your favourite class novel is, for any level! Let me know in the comments below!

– C