• The Scarlet Letter
• Billy Budd
• The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• The Red Badge of Courage
• …just to name a few from this semester.

Once a week I meet with a class of ten students, leading them through discussions about American books, stories, and the occasional poem, such as Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and William Cullen Bryant’s “To a Waterfowl” or Anne Bradstreet’s “To My Dear and Loving Husband.”

• Study Guide: For accountability and to check comprehension, I try to find a study guide for each book that the students must fill out as they read. We only meet once a week, so if they can’t figure out what’s important to note in the assigned chapters, they could be lost for days before we clear it up in class discussion. I used this Glencoe study guide that I found online, picking and choosing the activities (they had to complete the questions, but I skipped or modified some of the activities).
• Skit: Based on some feedback I got via e-mail, I got the feeling the students didn’t understand what was happening in “The Custom House” and the first few chapters of the book, so I brought in a construction paper “A,” a fake flower, and a big piece of cardboard. I had the students act out the basics of “The Custom House,” having the Nathaniel Hawthorne/Narrator discover the “A” among the papers. Then we switched to the story itself and someone held the cardboard to be the prison door. Someone else held the flower to be the rose bush. And we talked about the symbolism after they acted it out. I ran around sort of giving instructions and offering a sketchy narration, walking them through the first few events. The book has quite a dramatic opening, but I think its impact and drama can get lost in the difficult vocabulary. For a few minutes, I wanted them to experience the story without sifting through the words.
• Pillory: I found a great photo of a pillory online so they could envision where Hester was standing for her public humiliation. A quick search should turn up examples.
• Journal: The students are required to keep a reading journal, one entry per school day (a minimum of five sentences per entry; yes, I’ve had to count). I check these to be sure they are tracking. They are asked to be responding to their reading in some way—I wanted them to have a safe place to talk freely about the books. I could probably do better at creating some vision for the journals. Some of them don’t seem to grasp the potential of recording their responses and struggle to fill an entry.
• Vocabulary: The study guide provided some vocabulary lists. I used those.
• Quizzes: Most of the quizzes were vocabulary quizzes, since there are so many challenging words in The Scarlet Letter. I had my dictionary next to me the entire time I was reading the book. I should probably try to design them SAT-style, but I haven’t yet; the quizzes have been straightforward, matching the definition to the word.
• Study Resources: I referenced SparkNotes to see what those guides had to say.
• Story Chart: I used a story chart for them to identify key events and people in the book.
• Test: I created the test by modifying the quizzes found at this page. I deleted some questions, changed some of the answers, and added more multiple choice along with some short answer. Some of the questions included the definition of “plot,” “theme,” and “conflict,” which we talked about in class. They also had to answer two short essay questions: (1) “How do guilt, sin and/or shame change Hester, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth?” and (2) “Which character in The Scarlet Letter felt the most alienation? Why do you feel this way?” They were expected to cite at least one passage from the book to support their point(s) as well as talk about plot points or turning points in their own words. They had access to their books for the short essay questions, but not for the multiple-choice/short answer portion.
• Essay Writing: To help the students learn the basics of character analysis, I referenced this and for comparison/contrast essays and sent them to this simple sample essay was annotated to show what worked well. And I really liked this mind map as a tool to help them organize their thoughts and ideas before writing their essay. I took some time one week to walk them through it, though I don’t know if they still reference it.
• Essay Format: To help them learn MLA format, I’ve sent them to the OWL at Purdue.
• Essay Grading: I’ve been using the 6+1 Traits rubric for grading the writing. I like this summary, because it gives me a quick reference while grading that I can also share with the kids, so they can see what I’m looking for.
• Final Project: For their final project, I pulled ideas from Cliff’s Notes. They could choose from the following:

Final Projects