novel vs basal

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novel vs basal
By Carla

Hi Sandy, I understand your dilema. My school system has adopted the McGraw -Hill reading series in which we are required to use, and to be honest it is a great guide for me to ensure that I am teaching all of the required
skills. However, I love literature and I find that my students enjoy it too. Therefore I have implemented Literarture Circles. I have 25 students, so I have five groups with 4-5 different books. For example this month we are reading books by Jerry Spinelli, so each group has a different book by him. I gather the books from the school's library, other teachers and from donations. I am also

lucky enough to work at a school that has a book closet, which has sets of literature. Each group has a "book club" meeting 3 times a week. At this time the students work on completing their job(discussion on assigned pages, word finder...finds interesting words to share with the group, artist... illustrates a scene,etc) for a particular section of the book. I incorporate the basal once or twice a week. We read the story and I teach the skills that go along with the basal story. I hope this helps, if you would like more information, please email me