Comparing and Contrasting Novels FREEBIE!

Saturday, April 2, 2016
Since I have only been teaching 5th grade for a few years, I was not quite sure which novel I had wanted to use for our next Novel Study. So my friend Stephanie (Teaching in Room 6) recommended and lent me her ENTIRE set of novels for Gregor the Overlander, by Suzanne Collins. My class (and myself) were SO thankful! I had actually never read this book before, was not sure what to expect, but my class and I were hooked IMMEDIATELY just by looking at the cover.  This book really captured their interest.  What 5th grader wouldn't be intrigued by people in a foreign land riding bats?

Throughout the novel study, every time I told students to get their books out, I was often received with cheers and smiles. As we read the novel, students curiosities rose. WHERE did the author get the inspiration for writing this book? As we researched, we found out that the author, Suzanne Collins, inspiration for writing Gregor was from Alice and Wonderland.  This led to the PERFECT opportunity for teaching comparing and contrasting. I printed out a passage that gave the overall gist of Alice and Wonderland HERE. The following compare and contrast materials (that can be used when comparing ANY 2 novels) can be downloaded for FREE at the end of this post! :)
First, we reviewed the good old VENN diagram with the following visual. I had the students glue this into their Writing Notebooks.

Next, we focused on the elements of compare and contrast, most importantly signal words. I had the students glue this into their Writing Notebooks too!
Students used the following guiding questions to help themselves compare and contrast the two novels.
Below is a final picture of one of my student's work... 
Next week, students will be working on their rough drafts using the Venn. 
Check back to see how that goes. 
Click on the picture above to download these materials!

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