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S. Brock Innovative Teacher Award Nomination

Added Dec 03, 2022 •

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My favorite unit of the year in my sophomore English class is my Hero’s Journey Choice Book unit. Students are able to choose a novel from a selection of about 15 novels. Students are responsible for reading this novel independently over a span of about two months while charting their protagonist’s hero’s journey. To assess my students’ understanding of the hero’s journey, students are again given choices in how to visually represent the journey found in their novel. And that’s the innovative part to me, student choice.

The unit begins with a Book Tasting. I try to make this event seem as fun and inviting as possible so students will look forward to choosing their books. This year I was able to host the Book Tasting in the library where parents decorated with a coffee shop theme and provided snacks and cider and cocoa. Students enjoyed the relaxed environment while they spent quiet time with 6 of the possible 14 books. The goal of the event was for students to sample the books and jot down their thoughts about each text and end the class with a good idea of which book they planned to choose. My principal visited this year and loved seeing a room full of high school students totally silent, reading different novels.

Once students have selected their novel, they are given time in class over the term to independently read and track their hero’s journey. Some critics worry about English students not receiving access to the same texts and therefor will not have a strong foundation if they haven’t read the same books as their peers. However, this does not set up students for real-life reading habits. I help counter this problem by also having my students read The Odyssey during whole class instruction time. According to Gilmore and Gordon, pairing classic literature with contemporary or high-interest literature engages readers and strengthens critical thinking.

At the end of the term, students are given additional freedom to choose their final projects. They’re allowed to create a storyboard, a map, a slideshow, a video, storybook, or even an original song with music video. All the projects have the same end goal of demonstrating the students’ understanding of the hero’s journey. My artistic students last year loved being able to create original artwork for their projects.  My dramatic students acted out their scenes. Here we see a snippet of a student’s video from last year.

The majority of my students created slideshows, but that was perfectly fine. I was happy to have students get to choose their method of assessment.

Overall, the feedback from my students has been positive. They’re often shocked at the beginning of the unit because they’ve never been able to choose their own books before. Students are so accustomed to being told what to read and what to produce that this innovative approach tends to throw them off guard temporarily.

I asked last year’s students to send me their thoughts on the unit. A repeated message was that they were glad to get to choose their own novel. Student 4’s response, seen here, was a powerful message. They said, “book tasting let me pick a book I know I would not only enjoy but be willing to take the time prioritize.” They also enjoyed having choices in the final projects. Student 4 quote “remembers way too much about those books.”

It was that excitement about the books that I wanted to share with my students. The list of books available for this unit really is a big list of some of my all-time favorite books. Because I know these books so well, I’m able to periodically check in with students individually and ask where they are in the book and how they’re enjoying the book. I love hearing the shock from students when they get towards the end of Unwind or the joy when Melinda finally speaks up for herself in Speak and even how awful the movie version is of All the Bright Places and Ender’s Game and Ready Player One.

I wanted to show students the joy of reading, and that typically only happens when students are given choices.

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S. Brock Innovative Teacher Award Nomination

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