Unit Overview

Overview of Novel Study

You will complete a novel study that involves:

• Before You Read - Lesson
• As You Read - Reader Responses
• After You Read - Project Choices

You will have choices, choices, and more choices!

• Choices of novels
• Choices of working on your computer or on paper
• Sometimes, choices of responses
• Many great project choices

Depending on the novel you choose, this novel study will take you 3-5 weeks. Plan on reading two chapters per day (or more, if you wish). Complete the reader responses as you complete each section of reading. When the novel is complete, you will need a week or so to complete your plot diagram and project choice.

Personal Awareness and Responsibility Competency

While you explore the "Personal Awareness and Responsibility" competency skills in main characters, you will reflect on your own.

So what does "Personal Awareness and Responsibility" include?

Personal awareness and responsibility includes the skills, strategies, and qualities that help students and characters to stay healthy, set goals, monitor progress, regulate emotions, respect their own rights and the rights of others, manage stress, and persevere in difficult situations. Students and characters with strong personal awareness and responsibility demonstrate self-respect and express a sense of personal well-being.

Hatchet

This award-winning novel is part drama, a ton of adventure, and all courage!

Brian is on his way to Canada when the pilot of his small prop plane suffers a heart attack. Brian is forced to crash-land the plane and finds himself stranded in the remote Canadian wilderness with only his clothing and a hatchet his mother gave him as a present before his departure. Exhausted, terrified, and hungry, Brian struggles to find food and make a shelter for himself. He has no special knowledge of the woods, and he must find a new kind of awareness and patience as he meets each day's challenges. Is the water safe to drink? Are the berries he finds poisonous? Will he survive his ordeal?

The author, Gary Paulsen, just happens to be a former boy-survivalist and the author of about 200 other books. He’s also been a dogsled racer, a fur trapper, a former missile-tracker, an ex-carny, and from a young age, was rounding up his own meals in the forest. If you like this novel, there are more in the series! After Hatchet, Paulsen packed four more books with survival stories from his own life: The River, Brian’s Winter, Brian's Return, and Brian's Hunt. The series wasn't preplanned but readers loved The Hatchet so much that the author got hundreds of thousands of letters asking for more!

Novel of Choice

You are welcome to read a novel of choice. Please check with your teacher before starting this option to make sure your teacher agrees with your choice. Here are a few suggestions:

Adapted (Grade 3 - 4 Reading Level)

• Star Wars: Jedi Academy (by Jeffrey Brown)
• Mountain Bike Mania (by Matt Christopher)
• The Whipping Boy (by Sid Fleischman)
• Because of Winn Dixie (by Kate DiCamillo)
• Stone Fox (by John Reynolds Gardiner)

Grade 5 - 6 Reading Level

• Blood and Iron: Building the Railway (by Paul Yee)
• Call it Courage (by Sperry Armstrong)
• Counting by 7s (by Holly Goldberg)
• Elijah of Buxton (by Christopher Paul Curtis)
• Emily Carr Mystery (by Eric Wilson)
• The Zucchini Warriors (by Gordon Kormon) - Hilarious book for those who like to laugh out loud!
• Into the Wild (by Erin Hunter) - Book #1 of a highly addictive series!
• Island of the Blue Dolphins (by Scott O'Dell)
• The Emily Carr Mystery (by Eric Wilson)
• From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (by E. L. Konigsburg)
• The Mysterious Benedict Society (by Trenton Lee Stewart)
• My Side of the Mountain (by Jean Craighead George)
• Owls in the Family (by Farley Mowat)
• The Hunter's Moon (by O.R. Melling)
• A Single Shard (by Linda Sue Park)
• Silverwing (by Kenneth Oppel)
• Underground to Canada (by Barbara Smucker)
• Wonder (by R.J. Palacio).

Advanced (Grade 7 + Reading Level) - Make sure you get the unabridged original versions:

• Anne of Green Gables (by LM Montgomery)
• Black Beauty (by Anna Sewell)
• The Dog Who Wouldn't Be (by Farley Mowat)
• Heidi (by Johanna Spyri)
• The Incredible Journey (by Shelia Burnford)