Independent+Novels

Independent Novel

Throughout the year, we will be reading independent novels. These are novels OF YOUR CHOOSING. They can be fiction or non-fiction and of any length. We will be dedicating one day a week to these, so choose a novel that interests you. In response to your reading, you will be maintaining a blog on your wiki site.

How this works: 1. You will select a book to read. You can get it from the library or from home. It can be of any length.

2. We will dedicate one day a week for reading and blogging. We will read for approximately 20 minutes and blog for 20 minutes about what we’ve read from the last entry. You are WELCOME AND ENCOURAGED to read at home or in study hall but are not required to.

3. What you will blog about: a. What did I notice? This portion of the blog is about what you liked about the plot, characters, etc. This is also where you mention any literary elements you came across (metaphors, similes, symbols, personification, etc.). This should be a MINIMUM of one paragraph (6-8 sentences) and can be more. b. What did I wonder? This portion of the blog is reserved for any questions. These questions can be about why a character did something or why an author chose to write a certain way. These can also be questions about something you might want to learn more about based on your reading. For example, if the author mentions something about the FBI, perhaps your question might be how one is selected to become a member of the FBI. You should have a MINIMUM of one of these. c. What if? This portion of the blog is where your imagination takes off. What if Melinda had stayed and told the police about what happened to her at the party instead of running away? Maybe her friends wouldn’t have abandoned her. What if Elie Wiesel had chosen to write from the third person instead of a memoir? I don’t think the story would have been as powerful. This should be a MINIMUM of one paragraph (4-6 sentences).

4. Multimedia entries. You should incorporate a MINIMUM of one multimedia element per blog entry. This can be a picture of something or someone that relates to something you wrote, a link to a website that answered one of your questions, a post of song lyrics that an event may have reminded you of, a link to a video of a TV clip that references your novel or the topic of your novel, etc.

Grading : Students will be graded for each blog entry according to how well they are on prompt (see a., b., and c. above), grammar and usage (complete sentences and spelling), and the relevance of their multimedia element (if it might not be clear, you may want to explain it in your entry). Each blog entry is worth 20 points. Extra Credit: For every 100 pages you read per marking period, you earn 5 extra credit points. We will be keeping a log of what books you are reading.