# Teaching > General Teaching >  How do I teach a chapter of a novel to a class?

## SupaStudy

I'm a highschooler taking a college level course and we are reading Invisible Man. I really love it and I feel confident with my understanding of the book, but the teacher has decided that each day one of us will have the entire class to teach a specific chapter.

I was lucky enough to be the first one up x.x, I am starting it off, having to teach Chapter 2. Now once again, I feel good about the analyzing parts-- but how do i approach this? How should I structure it or where should I start. I dont know how to lay it out or where to begin or when to end. It all has to be just a lecture with some discussion, nothing else.

So I guess what I'm asking is...
+ how might you structure/approach teaching a chapter
+ how to decide what is arbitrary to analyze with the class
+ how to note key points/themes for the class without being tacky
+ How to keep it interesting WITHOUT the use of activities

I guess im just worried about beating around the bush, or focusing on small things, or just having the class confused at the end of it all. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated  :Redface:

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## Dark Lady

How long is the chapter and how long is the lesson? Do you have time to quickly read the chapter to the class at the beginning? Or to read parts and make comments on them throughout the class (one way of structuring it)?

What resources do you have? Can you make handouts for people to help with any confusion? Or use powerpoint to take them through the point you want to make?

I would say you should break it down into a few different headings to stop people getting bored. How you decide on these headings is up to you. You could go for a linear progression through the chapter and have it split into sections with analysis etc after each. Or if the book (sorry I haven't read it) doesn't lend itself to that sort of break-down you could decide on different analysis points. Break it down into a section on plot, one on characters, one on imagery (or whatever you want to comment on).

My flatmates just made my dinner so I'm off now. Hope that was of some use.

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## SupaStudy

Thanks for the response DarkLady,

the class is supposed to have read the book, so they should have analyzations of their own, I'm just supposed to revisit it and go much deeper into it.
As far as the chapter length, its quite long and extensive. 

While the class doesnt have powerpoint projector, I like the idea of a simple hand out to guide the class. Maybe some key questions or reference pages so I wouldnt have to constantly repeat the same thing, and/or could reference something in the chapter without spending so much time on the prereq. knowledge.

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## LitNetIsGreat

It sounds like more of a close reading task to me. I would teach this as such anyway, especially if the class has supposed to have read the book. Much of it depends upon how long your task is and your exact criteria, but I would briefly summarise the chapter first to remind your audience of it, before picking out what you feel are important aspects of the chapter in relation to the novel/character/themes, whatever, as a whole. 

Taking this approach means that you don't bore your audience by reading the whole thing back to them, instead you simply re-familiarise them with it, before delivering what you consider to be some key aspects of the chapter, which you have gained from your close reading. 

If that makes any sense.

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## SupaStudy

I have about 70 minutes in total, sorry, i really should have included that earlier.

Definitely the short recap sounds like a good idea. It gives the whole thing some structure as everyone will now be more or less on the same page.

Maybe 5 minutes devoted to a brief overview, then try to focus on several distinct points and create a discussion that ties it in with the major themes of the novel.

Ill also give a handout with a 3 sentence chap. summary, 4 or 5 major themes and points, and then page numbers and lines for each point. Then I will just go into each point and at the end of it all they will have an understanding of where to find text support for what I'm throwing out there.

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## LitNetIsGreat

70 minutes! That's quite a task set by the teacher there I think, I was thinking 30 minutes at most. It sounds like you have got everything planned out well though.

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## Dark Lady

I agree with Neely. Your overview sounds great. Good luck!

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## calebjross

How did it go, SupaStudy?

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## Dinkleberry2010

It sounds like you have a lazy teacher who is having his or her students to teach the class each day.

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## optimisticnad

Line by line analysis or even close reading is the worst possible way to teach a novel, or a chapter in a novel. What's you end goal? What do you want them to get out of that chapter? Learn what metaphors and similes? How to do inferring effectively? etc. Then use the chapter to teach your main concept. Bear in mind it is the not the novel itself that will stay with them but rather techniques and concepts that they can take and apply elsewhere so I wouldn't get too bogged down with analysing a specific chapter.

what on earth do you mean by without the use of activities???!!!!

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## Gladys

> Line by line analysis or even close reading is the worst possible way to teach a novel, or a chapter in a novel.


Perhaps so, but how else can one model the process of reading and understanding literature? Words, phrases, clauses and sentences come alive _only_ through reading sequentially to decode meaning. Many students are blissfully unaware of this process.

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## Shannanigan

> It sounds like you have a lazy teacher who is having his or her students to teach the class each day.


Quite possible, but not always the case. If the student is in an advanced class where all of the students have demonstrated mastery in interpreting texts, having individual students "teach" chapters a day at a time can force them to learn in a different way (through explanation to other students, which is obviously a challenge, or this student wouldn't have come here asking for help with it). The teacher will usually facilitate these "lessons" or allow for time after the lesson to fill in any blanks, but it can be done effectively.

...not saying that's the case here (the lack of basic guidelines about how to plan the lesson is a problem), but just saying that it is possible to do this and not be a "lazy" teacher.  :Smile:

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## myrna22

> I'm a highschooler taking a college level course and we are reading Invisible Man. I really love it and I feel confident with my understanding of the book, but the teacher has decided that each day one of us will have the entire class to teach a specific chapter.
> 
> I was lucky enough to be the first one up x.x, I am starting it off, having to teach Chapter 2. Now once again, I feel good about the analyzing parts-- but how do i approach this? How should I structure it or where should I start. I dont know how to lay it out or where to begin or when to end. It all has to be just a lecture with some discussion, nothing else.
> 
> So I guess what I'm asking is...
> + how might you structure/approach teaching a chapter
> + how to decide what is arbitrary to analyze with the class
> + how to note key points/themes for the class without being tacky
> + How to keep it interesting WITHOUT the use of activities
> ...


The teacher should have modeled what she has in mind as well as given directions about how she wanted the students to teach the chapters. Maybe she did this, but indirectly and you didn't pick it up. If you are a high school student taking a class at a college, you have a college teacher instructing you, not a high school teacher. Having done both, I know the teaching methods of college instructors/professors can be very different than those of high school teachers. An important key to success in both high school and college is to talk to the teacher if you are unclear about anything. Good teachers welcome questions from students who are proactive and who work with the teacher.

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