Description
Get your learners thinking! Our Unwind Novel Study Unit Plan by Neal Shusterman has the activities and quizzes you need to teach a 8-week novel study — prereading questions, characters, vocabulary, projects, writing, and more. You’ll love the “print-and-go” activities in slideshow and .pdf, AND the same fun activities converted and optimized for digital learning (608+ pages, slides, & forms for all your print and digital teaching needs).
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ And don’t forget the easy-grade Google Forms!
Your learners will have fun with the rigor and creativity of our engaging activities built from best teaching practices. We want to make your lesson plan journey easy, so you can focus on your expertise. This literature guide includes a curriculum map pacing guide that offers our day-by-day suggestion for how to plan out your weeks of fun activities.
Our pedagogy section explains the instructive idea behind the activity, gives ideas for implementation, and aligns the lesson plan to the standards. We’ve filmed some training videos on (1) how to assemble a Novel Analysis Packet that is unique to the academic needs of your learners and (2) how to effectively use our Quickwrite writing prompts.
To make your digital experience smooth, we include instructions (w/ screenshots!) of how to download and organize your activities in Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. We’ve added easy-grade Google Forms versions of each activity that auto-corrects their responses using a suggested answer key (which you can adjust afterward or modify your answer key) and compiles grades into a spreadsheet with learners’ names and class periods to make things easier for you to grade all in one place (some types of questions aren’t able to auto-grade, though, because of the short-answer format).
TEXT: UNWIND by Neal Shusterman
LEVEL: 7th – 9th
TOTAL: 608+ slides/pages/forms in lesson plan unit
→ Our activities easily integrate w/ Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Canvas, Schoology, Edmodo, Blackboard, Moodle, Brightspace, Sakai, Showbie, Remind, & more.
→ Pacing Guide and Suggested Answer Keys included
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WHAT OTHER TEACHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT THIS NOVEL STUDY RESOURCE
♥ This will be my second time teaching this novel and I’m excited to have an arsenal of supplies ready to go!
♥ I taught Unwind last year to a selected group of students and they loved it so much, I had to buy a class set for all my students this year. This guide really helps break it down on different levels from struggling readers to exemplary readers. It also helps me organize what I want to cover this unit and has every resource I could think to need. I cannot wait to start teaching this in a few weeks! Thank you so much for taking the time to create this and put it all together!
♥ I’m a homeschool parent and a public school teacher and my boys loved this resource! The book is fantastic and really allowed us to delve deep into some powerful social issues connected to the content, i.e. transplant tourism in other countries. I love that there were so many options for activities between essays, grammar, vocab, comprehension checks. My boys are a year apart and were able to do this book as a mini book club while meeting both their educational needs. Though I’m certified in English, I’ve never taught it (math teacher), so this eliminated a lot of the planning load. Incredibly organized and the keys were even color coded for easy grading. Thanks for this resource!
♥ I absolutely love this resource! Our 8th graders loved this book and this was so helpful to use for our first time teaching it!
♥ Visually appealing, adaptable to all learning levels and very thorough unit overall.
♥ I wanted to thank you for making my life easier teaching this novel, and I really love the common grammar tie in.
♥ Very comprehensive. Unit includes A LOT for the $. Most of the items are standard (fig lang & vocab), but some of the activities are more analytical and/or creative.
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UNWIND – NOVEL STUDY CONTENTS
→ Suggested timeline of how a teacher could plan out the unit book study
→ Detailed explanations of the goals of each activity and how to conduct the activities
→ Meets Common Core Standards (CCSS novel unit). Easy TEKS conversion.
→ Easy to differentiate for different learning levels: Honors, 2nd language learners, and Sped
➡️ ➡️ ➡️ BEFORE READING
★ Pre-reading Bias Intro Activity
– answer thematic questions to get learners thinking about the novel
– 25 pages & Google slides
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1,2
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1
★ Google Earth Introduction Tour
– The hometown view of Akron, OH, the semi-truck stop, Risa’s State Home, Lev’s railroad journey, and the aircraft Graveyard…and most of the 24 locations zoomed in to the 3D street view. It’s rockin awesome (especially the Admiral’s aircraft Graveyard).
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9
★ Introduction to Utopias Slideshow
– Introduces learners to the concept of utopias and dystopias; provides examples from real life, novels, and film
– 46 pages & Google slides
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5
➡️ ➡️ ➡️ DURING READING
★ Plot Chart Analyzer Diagram Arc Activity
– organize the 6 parts of the plot
– 10 pages & Google slides (suggested answer key included)
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.2
★ Conflict Graphic Analyzer – 6 Types of Conflict Activity
– Students analyze the 6 different types of conflict in stories
– 7 pages & Google slides (suggested answer key included)
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.2
★ Characters Analyzer Activity
– analyze the main characters using novel quotes
– 20 pages & Google slides
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3
★ Setting Analyzer Activity
– analyze 6 of the main settings
– 4 pages & Google slides
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.2
★ Slang Activity
– discuss the definitions of all the slang
– 4 pages & Google slides (suggested answer key included)
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4
★ Journal Questions – Quickwrite Writing Prompts – Slideshow
– 1/2 writing assignments to spur much deeper conversational thinking
– 58 pages & Google slides
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1,2
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1
★ 11 Comprehension Questions Pop Quizzes
– a 5 comprehension question pop quiz per approx 5 chapters
– 101 pages, slides, & Google forms
– The purpose of these is so learners who read the chapters recently would ace the quiz and learners who didn’t read recently would not do well.
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.2,10
★ Vocabulary List and Quiz Assessment
– 180 vocabulary words from the novel
– Six 30-question lists & quizzes (part i, part ii, part iii, part iv, part v, & part vi / part vii)
– 80 pages, slides, & Google forms (suggested answer keys included)
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4
★ Grammar Activity – Sentence Types – Simple, Compound, Complex
– practice Simple, Compound, Complex, and Compound-Complex sentence types
– 21 pages, slides, & Google forms (suggested answer keys included)
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.1
★ Grammar Activity – Hyphens & Dashes
– practice the rules for using Hyphens and Dashes
– 6 pages, slides, & Google forms (suggested answer keys included)
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.1
★ Figurative Language Instructional Slideshow Activity
– We set out to make the most helpful, most compelling, most graphically attractive teaching resource for you to introduce your learners to all the various figurative language. This 70+ slides slideshow + 70+ slides Google slideshow will help you introduce how every many you need to teach your level of learners.
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.7
★ Figurative Language Activity
– analyze and complete 60 figures of speech specific to the novel
– 22 pages, slides, & Google forms (suggested answer keys included)
– Similes, Metaphors, Idioms, Hyperboles, Analogies, Personification, Onomatopoeia, Puns, Symbols
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4
➡️ ➡️ ➡️ AFTER READING
★ Essay and Speech
– 3 response to literature essay options for learners to choose from; optional delivery of essay as a speech
– Includes essay topics and speech grading rubrics
– 10 pages & Google slides
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1,2,3
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1,9
– CCSS.ELA-SpeakingListening.SL.1,4,6
★ Movie vs. Novel Comparison Activity
– 4 pages & Google slides
– Compare & contrast the movie (not released yet … marked as In Development … https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1634144/) and novel
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.7
★ Final Projects
– 10 creative final projects for students to choose from
– 25 pages & Google slides
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.10
★ 10 Demandments Poster
– 1 36″x24″ full-color poster
– include The Admiral’s 10 Demandments
– CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.10
Enjoy! And remember…“This isn’t a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.”
