Over 150 updated and new lessons (oops – make that 152 – two more just were published) are now part of NextLesson’s Novel Study! The novel lessons are published in groups and range from two lessons per novel for grades 2-5 to five lessons per novel for grades 6-12.

Building in understanding and cognitive demand as students grow, the younger students experience an introduction to character and theme, middle students begin to analyze and identify with the story framework, and older students delve into an in-depth analysis. Each lesson for all grades 2-12 includes at least one writing prompt.

Here’s how it looks!

Grades 2-3

These lesson activities are designed to introduce the concepts of character and theme using a well-loved story. 

• An Introduction to Character
• An Introduction to Theme

Grades 3-5

Students will identify themes (with theme songs as an example) in longer narratives and will analyze the traits of a narrative’s characters in a second lesson. Each activity includes writing prompts.

• Identifying Themes
• Analyzing Character Traits

Grades 6-12

Along with analyzing theme and character, we now add a third activity – analyzing symbols. Each of these three activities includes four writing prompts that can be easily differentiated.

Blog Writing and Creating a Press Release are longer projects (1 week +) and work to develop deeper character insight and plot understanding.

• Blog Writing (character insight)
• Creating a Press Release (plot)
• Analyzing Theme
• Analyzing Symbols
• Analyzing Character

Let us know which novel(s) you want to see published by submitting a Novel Request here. To date, we’ve published 52 of the requests we received in Summer 2019. Upvote your request by asking your colleagues to join you in requesting the same title.