A Quick Guide to Teaching Reading Through Fantasy Novels 5-8

Supporting dreams of fabulous escape and transformation, fantasy literature can be especially compelling for adolescents. Mary Ehrenworth offers a unit of study that harnesses the power of this expansive and poignant genre to lure even reluctant readers into reading epic novels with passion and stamina.

Adhering to reading workshop principles and the classic session architecture honed by Lucy Calkins in the "Units of Study "series, this unit of study begins by launching the kids into fantasy book clubs that foster literary conversations. After exploring ways to read with deep comprehension and to synthesize across pages, students learn to develop thematic understandings. During the course of this unit, students likewise explore where their novels fit within the larger literary tradition. Throughout the unit, students read several books-tackling at least one series, and sometimes moving across series. (This unit of study is drawn from "Constructing Curriculum "in the Units of Study for Teaching Reading series.)

"A Quick Guide to Teaching Reading Through Fantasy Novels" is part of the "Workshop Help Desk" series.

About the "Workshop Help Desk" series The "Workshop Help Desk "series is designed for teachers who believe in workshop teaching and who have already rolled up their sleeves enough to have encountered the predictable challenges. If you've struggled to get around quickly enough to help all your students, if you've wondered how to tweak your teaching to make it more effective and lasting, if you've needed to adapt your teaching for English learners, if you've struggled to teach grammar or nonfiction writing or test prep...if you've faced these and other specific, pressing challenges, then this series is for you. Provided in a compact 5" x 7" format, the "Workshop Help Desk" series offers pocket-sized professional development.

For a comprehensive overview of the Units of Study for Teaching Writing series, including sample minilessons, sample videos, overview presentations, frequently asked questions, and information on the companion principal's guide and the Workshop Help Desk series visit unitsofstudy.com.

Mary Ehrenworth is coauthor of Pathways to the Common Core (with Lucy Calkins and Christopher Lehman). She is Deputy Director at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Columbia University. She studied history and literature at Harvard and then curriculum theory and adolescent literacy at Columbia, where she received her doctorate - and then has been lucky to work with three subjects she loves - books, children, and teachers. In addition to Pathways, Mary has authored and co-authored numerous books, including: The Power of Grammar; Teaching Reading Through Fantasy Novels; Constructing Curriculum and Tackling Complex Texts from Units of Study in Reading; and Looking to Write: Teaching Writing Through the Visual Arts.Lucy Calkins is the author of the best-selling grade-by-grade Units of Study for Teaching Reading, Grades K-8 and Units of Study in Opinion/Argument, Information, and Narrative Writing, Grades K-8 series, which have quickly become an indispensable part of classroom life in tens of thousands of schools around the world, the new Up the Ladder: Accessing Grades 3-6 Units in Narrative, Information, and Opinion Writing series, and classroom essentials such as the groundbreaking TCRWP Classroom Libraries and the Workshop Help Desk series. Lucy is also the author or coauthor of numerous foundational professional texts with Heinemann, including The Art of Teaching Writing, Writing Pathways: Performance Assessments and Learning Progressions, Grades K-8 , Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement, and One to One: The Art of Conferring with Young Writers. She is also the author of The Art of Teaching Reading. In her role as the Founding Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, a New York City - based organization that has influenced literacy instruction around the globe for more than thirty years, Lucy has developed a learning community of brilliant and dedicated teacher educators who have supported hundreds of thousands of teachers, principals, superintendents, and policy-makers in schools that bear their distinctive mark: a combination of joy and rigor in the classrooms, and entire school communities - teachers, principals, parents, kids - who wear a love of reading and writing on their sleeves. Lucy is the Robinson Professor of Children's Literature at Teachers College, Columbia University where she co-directs the Literacy Specialist Program - a masters and doctoral program that brings brilliant teachers and coaches to TCRWP schools everywhere and to the Project itself. She and her husband John are the parents of two sons, Miles and Evan.