UNIT 1: INTRODUCTION TO GENRES
Unit 1 is an introduction to a wide variety of popular American fiction novels. As the first unit of this course, students will be exposed to multiple works of fiction by reading excerpts of novels from five different genres (fantasy, science fiction, mystery, realistic fiction, and historical fiction) and also build extensive reading skills.
NOTE: Excerpts of novels are linked as pdf files on the lesson pages. You will have to make these excerpts available to students somehow (e.g., print outs, link to pdfs).
Students will be doing their extensive reading outside of class. They will be discussing the novels that they read inside of class. Since not every student will be reading the same excerpt, students will need to read their excerpt, summarize and interpret what they have read so far, and share the information with their classmates.
NOTE: In Unit 1, students are reading excerpts of novels. Later in the course, students can choose one or two of the novels to read in its entirety. See Ideas for Subsequent Units for more information.
UNIT OBJECTIVES
By the end of the unit, students will be able to...
- explain genres in popular American fiction and give relevant novel examples for fantasy, science fiction, mystery, realistic fiction, and historical fiction
- describe the general story of a wide variety of American popular literature
- understand about the way popular novels influence American culture
- read extensively: read progressively longer texts at a progressively faster speed for meaning
USEFUL INFORMATION
Excerpts of Novels:
The majority of the novels used in this unit fall in the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score range between 70 and 90. They can be substituted with any other novel of the teacher’s choosing to match the level of the students. The Readability Score website (see below) can be used to check the reading level of texts. Also, there are films based on each of the novels. All of the excerpts are used under the Fair Trade Use (see below).
Readability Score: https://readability-score.com/
Copy and paste text into this website applet, and the website will list various readability scores for the text. “Reading Ease” is calculated using the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease. “Grade Level” is averaged using multiple formulas for calculating reading scores. The website also lists text statistics such as word count and sentence count. NOTE: The “Reading Ease” and “Grade Level” are calculated for American students.
Fair Use Guidelines: - http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/copyright.cfm
These are general guidelines for using published materials in educational contexts. Using limited excerpts of books is permissible under Fair Use guidelines. Although the excerpts in the materials exceed the general guidelines of 10% or less than 1000 words of the original text, we feel that using limited excerpts of books (1-3 chapters) is allowable under Fair Use. Teachers should encourage students to purchase the full-length text for any novel(s) that students want to read throughout the course.
NOTE: Excerpts of novels are linked as pdf files on the lesson pages. You will have to make these excerpts available to students somehow (e.g., print outs, link to pdfs).
The majority of the novels used in this unit fall in the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score range between 70 and 90. They can be substituted with any other novel of the teacher’s choosing to match the level of the students. The Readability Score website (see below) can be used to check the reading level of texts. Also, there are films based on each of the novels. All of the excerpts are used under the Fair Trade Use (see below).
Readability Score: https://readability-score.com/
