Approaches to the Class Novel

Darllen
APPROACHES TO THE CLASS NOVEL
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Approaches	Methodology/examples	Learning features
1. Author's Visit	Real visits arranged through "writers in school" scheme, or imagined as in framing questions to ask the author or in correspondence with author.	Access to a professional writer. Seeing text in the writer's terms, readers communicating directly with writer, with texts as middle ground.
2. Reading Logs	Exercise book or folder containing rough jottings, reflections, personal connections, reviews in relation to books read in class and in private.	Developing personal responses. Valuing the reader's judgements and insights into text. Providing a cumulative record of reading experiences; developing learner's autonomy.
3. Cloze	An extract represented with deletions in text in order to focus on author's style and vocabulary. In groups class make suggestions about deleted words by drawing on their understanding of style and language used in text so far.	Highlighting stylistic/linguistic features of text, drawing attention to syntax. Encouraging hypothetical/speculative talk as well as problem-solving activity. Developing reflective awareness of how a text is constructed, encouraging awareness of selection and alternatives.
4. Prediction	Formal:extract is "cut up" into sections, groups speculate on what's going to happen in next section by reference to text in section before. Informal: breaking the reading in order to invite speculation on where the narrative is going.	Confirming and giving confidence in learner's existing sense of story. Developing logical sequencing skills. Encouraging close reading and awareness of contextual clues; to provide evidence from text.
5. Active Comprehension	Groups frame their own questions about a passage and select key question to explore as a group or to offer to rest of class.	Developing ability to frame appropriate questions. Encouraging readers to adopt an active, interrogative attitude to the text.
6. Spider diagrams	To map out ideas, further questions - relating to key question, for factors affecting a key event; or relationships between central characters and other characters; or relating events to central theme.	Finding patterns and relationships of meaning in a complete text. Drawing attention to structure and form; identifying themes and issues underpinning the text.
7. Maps	Representing journeys or a particular environment - building, street etc. Whole wall maps with room for quotations, pictures, events to be pasted on to form spatial relationships.	Making the text "concrete". Visualizing the text. Awareness of structure, developing sense of place. Tracking events. Matching events to places.
8. Family Trees	Particularly when many characters are involved in narrative. "Tree" may represent blood ties, may have theme to do with who knows who; how people have met; what interests they serve or promote, etc.	Aiding the reader. Providing a structure to facilitate reader's progress with text. Holding the structure of the book; looking for relationships in the text.
9. Storyboard for TV/Film	Series of drawings representing the way the camera would portray an event or passage from the book - camera angles, close-ups, long shots etc.	Translating from one medium to another, working in familiar forms; selectivity of symbol. Matching images to event. Enabling reader to "realise" perspective on the text.
10. Advertisers	Promoting the book "as if" the group were advertisers - choosing what to highlight about the book; target audiences, form of advertising , bookshop posters, jacket illustrations, blurbs etc.	Developing critical awareness. Highlighting concepts of audience, register, writer's intentions etc. selecting appropriate symbols, images, quotations, "marketing" literature, providing motivation and sustaining interest.
11. Illustrators	Working "as if" illustrators to discuss or execute illustrations of text, jacket covers etc. Emphasis on matching form of illustration to sense of text.	Working as "experts" rather than as learners. Emphasis on style and atmosphere of text. Selecting events or moments to capture. Justifying and making decisions in relation to how the text should be represented. Close reading.
12. Casting Directors	What sort of actor would have the right image for the character in the book - tall/short; assertive; young; deep voiced etc?	"Filling out" characters. Making inferences. Stereotypic/original interpretations. Collective image of how a character would appear. Dwelling on aspects of character.
13. News	Incidents from the story written as news; front pages with a composite of stories relating to central event. Emphasis on reporting from outside the event; what should be selected as "news".	Translating events into familiar forms. Popularising the text. Reporting and journalistic conventions. Creating a distance between characters' perceptions of events of the readers'.
14. Investigative journalism	In form of a documentary exposing an issue, or presenting an issue that is important in the book - maybe a number of related items drawing on background material beyond that offered in text; public inquiry, exposé, etc.	Emphasising issues in book. Relating text to other material dealing with same theme. Presenting, selecting, arranging material. Authorial intention and bias. Airing values, making judgements.
15. Diaries for journals	Written "as if" by characters in book, reflecting their reactions to events of the narrative. Daily diaries, log of a journey, prison journals or extra instalments for journals and diaries that appear in the story.	"Personalising" the characters and events. Imagining what people and events would be like. As an aid to reflection, filling out the text. Active participation with narrative.
16. Time Line	Representing temporal relationships between events, places, characters etc, as a linear sequence. Events in a character's life, frequency and proximity of events within the time span of book.	Drawing attention to sequencing and structure. Establishing cause and effect relationships. Providing a framework of book's events for quick reference.
17. Alternative Narrators	In groups, re-telling events from point of view of other than that used by author - peripheral characters; third person, first person. Carrying on the re-telling in a variety of different registers etc.	Highlighting characterisation. Offering fresh perspectives on start. "Playing" with text. Demonstrating relationships between viewpoints and attitudes. Emphasising selectivity of style and language in the original form.
18. Costume/set design	Deciding on how a character, or groups of characters, should be costumed, including personal props. Or how a set should be designed for a particular event or place in the text. Designs discussed, illustrated, made, or written as notes.	Dwelling on aspects of character and awareness of descriptive imagery. Making people and places more concrete and immediate. Attention to detail and contextual clues. Establishing a cultural context.
19. Correspondence	Writing letters from characters to imagined people outside the text, or between characters, or between peripheral characters about behavior or personality of a central character.	Becoming actively involved with the people and events in text. Demonstrating comprehension of aspects of characters. Commentating on text as a reader but from viewpoint of the characters.
20. Waxworks/Still Images/Photos	Group work to produce tableaux representing gesture, spatial relationships, body language at a particular moment, or to illustrate a quote; others can guess which moment or line is being presented and why.	Freezing action to allow time for detailed discussion and reflection on the significance of the selected moment. Allowing a greater variety of forms of communication to represent group's "meanings", beyond verbal forms. Develop "Iconic" creativity and response.
21. Alternative Chapters	Planning in talk or writing "missing chapters" that fill out the original, or foreground peripheral characters not present in the central events.	Developing sense of alternatives and emphasising role of writer. Matching new material to existing forms in text - vocabulary, syntax, register, conventions, etc.
22. Springboarding	Fiction is used as starting point and focus for detailed analysis of an important issue. Fiction compared against factual material relating to the issue, or in comparison with other fiction which has an alternative bias on the issue.	Book used as a starting point for issue-based teaching. Story helps to personalise the issues and allows for effective response to issue. Developing empathy for characters faced with an issue from a different perspective to reader's eg disability, race, gender, poverty etc.
23. Soundtracking	In groups, composing and performing sounds to accompany a sequence of action or to establish a sense of place.	Emphasising descriptive imagery. Matching non-verbal form to sense of text. Developing sense of "atmosphere" and the "environment" of the book.
24. Thought-tracking	Creating "interior speech" for each character at critical moments or in crucial passages of dialogue. Contrasting inner dialogue (what is thought) with outer dialogue (what is said).	Encouraging reflective awareness of characters' feelings and thoughts. Recognising characters' relationships with others. Making inferences. Bringing readers into closer, more active participation with events and characters. Encouraging readers' insights into character.
25. Visual interrogation	Drawing introduced as a means of making sense of a problematic passage. Building an image from clues in text. Accurately portraying textual description. Collective drawing. Representing negotiated consensus of how some thing, place, or person, would appear.	Using alternative iconic form to gain access to the text. Discovering from others as a result of mutual activity. Matching intuitions and hunches to what's actually represented in the text. Accessible form for less able reader.
26. Starting in the middle	As a way into book, or introduction to new section - a message, letter or fragment of text is presented and group asked to build speculations as to meaning, context, consequence.	Motivating readers' interest prior to reading of whole text. Encouraging intuitive speculation about narrative, characters, style. Extending range of possibilities offered by text. Looking for clues, problem-solving activity.
27. Cultural contexts	Reconstructing and inferring a broader cultural context for characters or events, type of housing, likely occupations, cultural pursuits, class/gender attitudes - how far are the events and characters socially constructed? How would a change of cultural context affect the effects?	Identifying social and cultural pressures and influences on characters and events. Identifying cultural and social assumptions underpinning book. Identifying authorial bias, purpose and intention. Filling on the world of the book. Testing credibility of book's context, examining stereotype and social cliché.
28. Meeting/courts /inquiries	Improvised re-enactments of crucial meeting in story, or imagined meeting to deal with issues or events in story, or as post-mortem to events, or to establish motivations, consequences as in court case.	Bringing readers into active participation with text. Examining pressures and conflicts affecting decisions in book. Examining cause and effect relationships.
29. Hot seating	Individually, or collectively, taking on role of a character to answer questions posed by rest of group, who many also have a role, eg detectives, scientists, etc.	Highlighting character's motivation and personality disposition. Encouraging insights. Making readers participants in the action. Encouraging reflective awareness.