Reading for Growth and Self-Reflection
A Unit of Study Based on the Novel Holes, by Louis Sachar (Virtual Tour)
Stage of Literacy Development:
Stage 3: Literacy for GrowthAges:
10-12
Grade Range:
5th 6thFood Groups:
Primary: Reading Fluency & Expression, Reading Comprehension Strategies
Secondary: Vocabulary, Text Structures & Genres
Transcript
The book Holes by Louise Thatcher is a novel study that my class and I do in the last remaining weeks of school. The reason I chose to do a novel study at the end of the year is because I want to choose a novel with the class that is about change and the story of Holes is about a group of people who go through a change much like we have throughout the course of the year. The other reason is that we have now reached a point where we've developed our literacy skills and we can now see how we can utilize them. How are our inferring skills? How are our comprehension skills? And our writing skills? So, we read the book both independently (some of the readings are assigned for reading at home) and some of the readings we do here as a class, and one of the most important aspect of the book study or the novel study is that, it's a critical analysis of the story. So we're not just reading the story and writing about what happened. We're reading the story, we're getting know the character, we're understanding who these characters are, what changes they go through and how that affects them and how does that affects the story? What meaning does that have for us, as readers of the story?
Related References
Activity Objective
The goal of Reading for Growth and Self-Reflection: A Unit of Study Based on the Novel "Holes," by Louis Sachar (Virtual Tour) is to promote the enjoyment of reading and writing by providing students with opportunities to make connections between their own experiences and the novel, Holes.
Quick Tips
Additional Comments:
- Students become motivated to read and write when they have a choice and their interests are considered.
- Incorporate a variety of multimedia hands-on learning experiences into the unit of study.
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