How to Create a Literature Study Guide for Middle School Students

Students don't have to wait until they get into high school to begin reading novels in class. Middle school students respond very well to novels being taught as part of the Literature curriculum. As a teacher, you can create your own literature study guide without the expense of purchasing a "canned" guide from a teacher's resource publisher.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• At least a classroom set of the chosen novel
• 1 copy of the novel to be designated as the teacher copy
• Paper and pencils for notes and creating activities

1. Choose a grade-level appropriate novel. It will need to be reading level appropriate if you have lower reading level students. High-interest, low-level novels are abundant.
2. Read the novel completely once before going back through it to take notes. Make sure you divide the novel into manageable sections; 2 to 4 chapters at a time works well.
3. Pull vocabulary words out that can be identified in context and create vocabulary lists and activities for each section.
4. Find and write down discussion questions and activities for each section. Make sure the questions lend themselves to good, in-depth discussions rather than just simple, factual answers.
5. Develop graphic organizers for the students to fill out or complete. Use things like story maps, T-charts, character webs, prediction charts and decision making grids. Make transparencies of these to use on the overhead and help the students work through them.
6. Develop cooperative learning activities and some speaking/listening activities.
7. Finally, develop and create study guides and tests or quizzes for each section. Tests should include multiple choice, matching, sequencing, short answer and essay/extended response sections.

Tips & Warnings

• You should address several, if not all, of the skills and strategies such as thinking, comprehension, vocabulary, literary elements, writing and listening/speaking.
• Refer to Bloom's Taxonomy for help developing questions.
• It is very important that the students read each section prior to working on any of the study guides. If they don't, they will only look for the answers and won't actually read the novel.
• Do not overload the study guides with trivial questions.