The Whole Novel Study Meets Technology

When I first had the opportunity to read Whole Novels for the Whole Class: A Student-Centered Approach by Ariel Sacks (@arielsacks), I was instantly intrigued by the notion of students taking on the key role as owners of what would be discussed about the novel being read.  I, like most students throughout the United States, had always been given chapter questions, story vocabulary, and been "helped" to find the importance within a novel.  Unfortunately as a teacher, I fell into that same trend. Ariel equates this style of teaching a novel to going to a movie theater and having the movie stop while questions are asked about the movie thus far.  It just doesn't work that way. Students need to be given the opportunity to comprehend a piece of literature, and then creatively and critically respond to that text. So, I set out to change my style of teaching the whole novel, and along the way, I found some engaging ways to integrate technology into the whole novel study.

During the Reading
During the study of the whole novel, Ariel Sacks puts a lot of early emphasis on students recording their thoughts using post-it notes throughout the text. On these post-its, students keep track of their questions, feelings, opinions, and predictions about the events of the novel. Throughout my first novel studies, I have realized the importance of continuing to model literal, inferential, and critical thinking on the post-it notes. The best models though come from the authentic sources of great thoughts: the students.

Using the website Padlet, students are able to post one of their post-it notes during the week onto the the class's wall.  Students browse the thoughts of their classmates, challenging their thinking and modeling

An example of student posts for Maniac Magee on Padlet.

different thought paths within the novel.  It also acts as a great check-in with the students where discussions stem from student thoughts.  Posts can also be organized on the wall into related themes, thoughts, or similar questions.  It is an excellent and easy tool to share quick ideas as a class.

During the reading of the novel, Ms. Sacks uses mini-projects that help students to "investigate a literary element in the text and unlock a layer of comprehension for them."  These mini-projects described in chapter seven of her book are collaborative, ongoing, informal assessments that allow students to interact with the text in a meaningful, engaging manner.  A new technology piece that I used with my class for a character mapping mini-project was Cacoo. This site links directly to your Google Drive through Google Apps. Cacoo is an interactive whiteboard with many capabilities including numerous pre-made templates.  For the character mapping project, students utilized Cacoo and its mind mapping templates to organize the character's motives, actions, traits, and conflicts.  The best part about Cacoo is that students are able to share their creation with a group of students.  In my class, up to five students collaborated on the same diagram allowing them not only to work in class, but to collaborate on the same diagram from home as well.

Students used Cacoo to create collaborative character maps.

During the Discussion Process
Student-driven discussions about the novel are the backbone of the whole novel approach.  Student thoughts and questions drive the discussion allowing them to experience the novel as the "chief thinkers" throughout the process.  Technology helps to enhance and organize the discussion process for the students and the teacher.

I started typing the transcript of each day's discussion on a Google Document.  Ariel talks about the importance of examining the transcript as a teacher before the next day's discussion takes place. I began sharing the transcript with the participants as a "can edit" document.  Students were encouraged to use the comment feature, highlight important statements, and raise questions that could be brought up during the next day's discussion.  Not only did this allow the students to reflect on the discussion that took place during class, but it allowed students to gather their thoughts for the next day's discussion as well.  Students picked up on trends within the discussions that I would have never thought of after examining the transcript.  

Edmodo also acts as a multi-purpose tool during the discussion portion of the whole novel study.  Discussions work best when there are twelve students or less with speaking roles.  This allows students to voice their opinions and should give them ample opportunities to get involved in the discussion. But we all know, classes are rarely twelve students with some class sizes reaching the high twenties/low thirties.  Edmodo gives students an opportunity to get into the discussion without having an verbal role.  Students are able to backchannel and discuss what is being said using Edmodo as their platform.  We use Twitter speak (@Tommy or @Emily) to address where our comments are directed.  This digital venue also gives quieter students a voice during the discussion as well.  Students address comments from the discussion and comments from other students who are back channeling as well.  When I use this inner circle/outer circle format, students enjoy reflecting on the backchannel discussion and often carry the discussion over outside of the classroom.  Teachers also use Twitter as another backchannel option during discussions.

Each day during whole novel study discussions, students also create their own homework questions that stem from their discussions.  Edmodo is also an excellent place for students to post their answers to these nightly, student-generated questions.  It gives students an authentic audience and allows them to read differing points-of-view on a topic.  Some nights, I ask students to post their answer and respond to a classmate's post. This jump starts and builds excitement for the next day's discussion period.

Some days, I just can't move my typing fingers fast enough to transcribe entire discussions.  Class Dojo has given me another venue to keep track of student discussions.  I think of it as Mr. Pardalis' class version of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption.  Normally a behavior tracking program, Class Dojo gives the user the ability to set up classes and edit comments.  I have found it very useful as a means of tracking class discussions.  I edited the comments to score for "participation, citing text evidence, referring to a partner's comment, drawing a classmate into the discussion and discussion hog." Students really enjoy seeing their scores up on the board, and it gives them a visual cue of when they may be taking over a discussion and others may need or want to get involved.  It has been a very useful tool to help engage students in class discussions.  Plus, they love comparing their monster avatars.

These are just a few examples of how technology can be infused into the whole novel study and discussions.  What are some ways you use technology to enhance your teaching of literature in the classroom?