Hey there, everyone, and thanks in advance for reading and for any and all advice.
For reference, the JHS at my school are Eiken 3/Pre-2 (A1 to A2), and SHS Pre-2 to Pre-1 (A2 to B2).
I’ve been working with the head English teacher to reform the English curriculum at my school, especially since it boasts English as a strong suite, despite it lagging behind other schools in the area as of late. We have a lot of short (10-20 page) English books that I have the JHS students read, and we (as a “what-if haha” topic) discussed getting real English novels for students to read. He has recently gone (and got approved) an order of 60 PenguinReaders, ranging from Pre-A1 level to B2. For anyone unfamiliar with the contents, check here PenguinReaders Set A.
In the topic we had in passing, we discussed the students reading all the currently available materials, and how it would be great if they felt they could enjoy reading in English. SHS is currently on the… oh-so-fun SKYWARD Land, Ocean, Cloud series, so this is primarily directed at them, but meant to be an opportunity for the entire student body of 120 students. He wants to eventually get Set B, so essentially every student has access to one book, with the levels being divided by floor (JHS floor has access to Pre-A1 to A2 books, SHS floor has access to A2+ books).
This brings me to my question/request for everyone. For those of you that use English novels in your class, how do you use them? Do you have any advice or things you recommend avoiding? Had it all been the same book, we could have done a large variety of things, such as reading in groups or discussing the story in groups… but as they’re all inevitably going to be different, I’m at a loss for what we could do in class. Would it be better, perhaps, to create general worksheets that serve as questions the students can answer about their novel, regardless of the book? I.E. Write about the characters that appeared, what do you think about the current situation, etc (off the top of my head).
tl;dr we ordered 60 different novels and I’m at a loss of how to use them for JHS/SHS. Any and all advice/ideas would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT: The students (JHS and SHS) absolutely LOVE and DEVOUR the current English books, and SHS gets really into using English in more creative, interesting topics/readings so their motivation is no issue.
by Xarenvia