Hoot Novel Study

In the term 2 holidays I drew up my long term plan for term 3. I had decided that I wouldn't do a novel study because I felt like I needed to put more focus on a solid guided reading programme., however my lower readers are out most days receiving additional help during our reading time. This leaves me with 1/3 of my class who are all reading above their level. They love novel study and begged and begged to begin another one. 

Our last novel was so successful/popular that I ended up buying my class the set of books, which are always out of the library because they are all trying to finish the series. 

Before we began the book we analysed the cover.
We look at the text and what that suggested about the book and then we looked at the pictures and made predictions on what we thought the book would be about. 
This started a lot of great literary discussion of all the elements of the cover. 

- Title
- Image of the three children
- What the relationship between the children was
- Why the owl was at the front of the children, suggest the owl was leading the children somewhere

We read the first chapter together and made notes on all the characters and information about them in their reading books.

We then had a discussion lesson. I presented them with 10 statements that relate to the book. This was extremely successful and the students had so much fun debating and arguing their positions.
Statements:

1.  All animals should be protected.

2.  All children should have a voice in a move to another state.

3.  Parents should allow young people to make their own decisions without asking too many questions.

4.  Land animals should have more rights than fish.

5.  All children should have a safe place to live with parents.

6.  All young people of school age should have an education and be in school.

7.  Students in school are smarter than students not in school.

8.  Police do everything right.

9.  Administrators / Principals are always fair.

10. The good guy always wins in the end.

I then had students choose one of the ten statements they felt most passionate about and write it in their book. They then wrote their argument for or against that statement.

We read a few more chapters and had a lot of discussion and comprehension activities. 

Sometimes when I want to ensure my students are listening I will have them go on Tagxedo and make a key word chart from the chapter we read.

My students are loving this book and I am having to growl them for attempting to read ahead when I am not looking! 

Marnie's Tagxedo:

Estelle's Tagxedo: