Suggestions for creating materials:
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
To create discussion questions, make sure you have some questions to ask students prior to reading the book, during the read, and some for after finishing the book. It is important that some of the questions be directly from the reading (the kinds of questions kids can find the answers to in the book) and that some questions use higher-level thinking (allowing students to think deeply about the answers). If you need guidance in how to write these questions, I recommend Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis’s Strategies that Work.
LESSON PLANS and MENTOR TEXTS
When writing lesson plans, every certified teacher should be familiar with the basic components of a lesson plan. At the very least, this involves having at least one objective, linking the lesson to standards, having some sort of motivational device to get students interested, a procedure, and a closure. I have a more detailed description of each component (and other components not listed here) under relevant links.
If you want to use your book as a mentor text to demonstrate a specific skill or craft of writing, you can create a lesson plan to do so. You would list the writing skill you wish students to learn in your object and explain how your book could be used to support that in your procedure.
Additional resources for lesson planning:
- Classic lesson plan format from Madeline Hunter
- Lesson Plan Template that I used when teaching education majors (a little more in depth than the classic lesson plan format)
READING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS and LANGUAGE ARTS ACTIVITIES
When developing reading comprehension questions and Language Arts activities, focus on things you pay attention to as a writer, things like main idea, supporting details, and titles. Students should be able to find some of the answers in the article, and some they should have to think about and make connections to prior learning in order to answer.
LITERATURE GUIDES FOR NOVELS
For comprehensive literature guides, be sure to include the discussion questions and activities for chapters, and common core standards you’ll address in the unit. It is also helpful to include an “About the Author” page, suggested pre-reading and post-reading activities as well as possible themes and essential questions that can be discussed throughout the novel.