ICYMI: Reading Units

A roundup of reading units over the last two years of the Moving Writers Community

There are some weeks I can’t even read and reply to all of my school email, much less read blog posts and newsletters. So, I thought it might be helpful this summer to periodically round up some MW posts from the last two school years in case you missed it!

If you are not a paid member of our community, subscribing as a paid member will not only give you access to all the archived links in this posts, but also our complete archives, all new posts and units, free professional development, and monthly chats.

The MWC is also joining together this summer for three slow-chat discussions about professional texts. We’ve just started our discussion of 4 Essential Studies by Penny Kittle + Kelly Gallagher. And guess what? Penny will be popping in and out of our discussion, too! Become a paid member today so you can join in our summer reading fun!

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Managing Book Clubs

This post, written in Fall 2020, was originally composed to help teachers take book clubs digital, but there is a lot in this post to help you manage book clubs successfully in person, too: how to schedule reading, keeping everyone on task, using universal skill lessons to speak into different texts, and more! There are calendars and handouts! While my unit was on Holocaust literature, this plan is adaptable to any book club unit.

Collaborative Character Analysis Essays

Okay, this is a little bit of a cheat because it is, technically, a writing unit. However, this is exactly the kind of writing teacher typically assign after whole-class reading — and that’s how I used it. It works perfectly as communal thinking about communal reading. And it makes analytical writing so accessible as a series of mixable-and-matchable blocks of thinking.

(and here are examples of what my students wrote!)

Reading Hamilton As a Whole-Class Text

This post is really about how we teach reading SKILLS and not just content when we approach a whole class text. My example is Hamilton. However, you could use the skills (progressing from identifying symbols to motifs to using motifs to articulate themes) in any literature unit!

Teaching Macbeth or Any of Shakespeare’s Plays

This unit, which borrows heavily from Folger Library techniques, focuses on characterizatiaon and close reading. These methods transfer to any Shakespeare play, and this unit transformed Macbeth from something I had to do to something I can’t wait to do.

Managing Literary Salons

In book clubs, students are reading and studying the same text together. In literary salons, students are reading and studying different texts that are unified by a central theme or idea. This theme or idea directs the salon’s discussion and work. Literary salons are perfect for students who have need a greater challenge than book clubs OR when you don’t have enough copies of a text for groups to all read the same one in tandem.

Identifying Systems of Power + Bias in Texts

This was a new reading unit for me this year, and I have been so encouraged by the way students have pulled this thinking through into their independent reading. Once we teach students how to SEE power and bias, they see it everywhere. And we desperately need them to be able to do this. I think you’ll love this unit; my students did!

Have you already used some of these resources? How did it go? What are you still looking for and wishing for in terms of reading units? Leave a comment!