The following novels have worked well in my classes. They have been grouped according to topics or themes that I have taught in my courses, but can of course be used in other combinations.
The following examples of young adult literature can be read from year 4 or 5 on, depending on the reading skills of the students. All the books deal with topics that are interesting and relevant for teenage learners. Don’t forget that the students are always given a choice — I haven’t found the perfect class-reader yet that would appeal to boys and girls, to read-a-holics and non-readers and to lovers of fantasy or love-stories alike.
I have taught some of these books in themed projects, such as “Teens in Trouble”, “Nazi Germany/ The Second World War”, “Cultural Values: Intercultural Awareness”, “Civil Rights”, …
In other reading projects I have offered a variety of books that appeal to the different tastes and needs in a class.
New project:
The Refugee Experience
This project has been created in order to help intermediate learners understand refugees and their experiences and needs a bit better. The project consists of five steps: 1. bookchoosing, 2. reading the books at home, 3. online research tasks about the recent refugee crisis (to be done while the learners are reading the books). 4. post-reading tasks and 5. group presentations.
Click on the following picture to get to the teaching materials for all these steps.
Intercultural Awareness: Preparing for a class-trip
For this project I present 5 or 6 of the following books. Then the students work in their reading groups with one of the general project packages that you can find on the intro page on “Young Adult Literature Projects”. All these books are real page-turners. Some of the declared “non-readers” in my classes have told me that they actually hadn’t known books could be so good. 😎
A group project that teaches and practices article writing. This project can be used at any level from A2 upwards. Students write about any topics of their own choice. Peer feedback contributes to good quality and interesting topics.
Wait for the prezi to load, then click on the arrows in the bottom right corner to view this PREZI in full screen mode.
Books and booklets are a wonderful format for lots of topics and projects. The idea is based on the “Didaktik des weißen Blattes”. Instead of worksheets the students are given empty booklets that they have to fill at their own discretion. The learners decide themselves what information to include and how to present it in these booklets. These projects are ideal to practice a variety of text-types. Depending on the situation teachers might give no instructions or tips at all or might give some guidelines concerning content and format(s). The Middle Ages and Tall Tales booklets show a mix of autonomous work and teacher assignments. What all these projects have in common is the learners’ pride and feeling of accomplishment when they hand in their finished masterpieces.
Tip: The feeling of accomplishment and pride that learners experience when handing in their finished masterpieces release a powerful mix of chemicals in the learners’ brains. They are flooded with dopamine and other neurotransmitters that act like addictive drugs saying: “Wow! That feels good, gimme more of this. I’ll do it again.” .
Writing creative stories can be real fun, especially if the stories will actually be read and appreciated by others. The following activities and projects have worked well with my students.
The spooky story project: A project that teaches the past progressive tense to describe the setting and circumstances.
Christmas Stories: Writing, illustrating and voice-recording Christmas stories.
Oliver Twist Diaries: After working on the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the lower classes in Britain, we watched the movie “Oliver Twist” in class. The learners were given old-looking diaries (i.e. empty booklets consisting of 3 sheets of white paper and one cover-sheet that had been stained with black tea and/or coffee before).
At interesting and moving moments we stopped the film and the learners were asked to write Oliver’s diary after this specific experience. The learners had between 5 and 10 minutes to write about a specific day or experience while it was still fresh on their minds and the new vocabulary from the movie was still ringing in their ears. Some learners used the Oliver Twist diaries in class and wrote the diary entries directly into these booklets. Others used their own sheets and then revised and typed their texts at home.
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