THE NOVELS IN VERSE COLLECTION: Unit Possibilities [243]

Have you ever considered how novels in verse can transform the way you teach poetry and literature? In this episode, we dive into the world of narrative verse and explore how these texts, like The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, can bring poetry to life in your classroom!

With their accessible format and rich themes, novels in verse offer endless possibilities for fostering student engagement while covering essential literary skills and perspectives. We’re breaking down two powerful approaches to teaching these texts: a skill-based focus and a theme-based focus. Whether you’re filling gaps in poetry instruction or bringing underrepresented voices into your curriculum, both avenues are highly adaptable!

As always, we’re here to support your planning with our best tips and resources for making these units work in your classroom. Be sure to download our free theme notes sheet AND  join us in Happy Hour, because that’s where we’ll be dropping our novels in verse unit for you. We’ll be continuing this conversation in our next episode where we’ll dig into essential questions!

Resources:

• Freebie: bravenewteaching.com/themenotes
• The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo 
• Amanda’s Novels in Verse Book Recs List

SHOW NOTES: https://www.bravenewteaching.com/home/episode243

Head to bravenewteaching.com/waitlist to become a beta tester for BNT University!

Transcript

Automatically Transcribed With Podsqueeze

Amanda 00:00:06  Here at the Brave New Teaching Podcast. We are always looking for the newest, most engaging and fantastic books for you, the teachers, to step up your game and enhance your practice. And we have a brand new book recommendation for you that we just couldn't wait for an entire episode to share. If you are looking for a professional development book that's going to serve you over this winter break, or maybe even as a gift to a fellow educator, we have got your next recommendation. You need to check out Roll Call by Doctor Jenna Cooper. As you know, Doctor Jenna Copper is one of the greatest friends we have over here at the podcast. You have downloaded her interview with Marie almost more than any other episode. So I know that a lot of you have heard Jenna and her work and what she's up to. So not only should you listen to that episode, but you need to check out Jenna's brand new book. This book is phenomenal. And as you know, Doctor Cooper is an education professor and former English teacher.

Amanda 00:01:10  So she's in everything from teaching students to teaching teachers. And she has written The Ultimate guide to creating lessons that will really and truly captivate your students while still meeting those all important standards. This book roll call is packed with practical strategies and innovative ideas that will transform your classroom, and for a very special bonus time. Jenna is offering an exclusive perspective plan toolkit absolutely free when you purchase Roll Call. It's going to be so awesome, and you are going to love all of the new ideas that you that you get. you can bet you can buy Jenna's book right now on Amazon, so head over to Amazon.com. Find your copy of Roll Call, and then once you have your order, you're going to go to roll call bonus. That's r o l e c a l l b o n u s roll call bonus or head to today's show notes and claim your free perspective plan toolkit. It's a freebie right now. When she's launching her book for the very first time, it's not going to linger around for very long.

Amanda 00:02:27  Your students will thank you, and you're going to thank you, because this is going to make you feel good about teaching and really amp up your energy. We're so excited for you to read it yourselves and let us know what you think. Talk to you soon and enjoy the show.

Marie 00:02:43  Well, hello and welcome back to Brave New Teaching. Hello, Amanda. Oh.

Amanda 00:02:47  Hi, Marie. Hello. I'm so happy you're here.

Marie 00:02:50  So happy. You know what I think is funny is every time I say, oh, hi, Amanda, and you say, oh, hi, Marie. As if we haven't been talking for an hour on the phone before we started recording.

Amanda 00:03:01  To me that transparent.

Marie 00:03:04  It's just so funny. I love that we do it every time. Hello, friends. We are gonna get nerdy today, and I hope you are all excited to get nerdy with us. Because it's time.

Amanda 00:03:19  It's time. And, Marina, I mean, if you're new to the podcast, welcome.

Amanda 00:03:22  Of course. We're so happy you're here. If you've been here for a while, Marie and I have been doing this now for for a few minutes. And I think that this format that we're going after, especially for a collection like this, that we're going to start today, I think is really going to serve teachers so well in this, like very realistic kind of way. Like, if you really want to improve your craft, you really want to just become a better, more inspired teacher, going to these like big events and having huge PD sessions, like that's a lot. But like being able to push play on a handful of episodes that are gonna, you know, churn out and deliver you like a whole new set of ideas. I don't know, that's like, grab and go, baby. It's like the drive through.

Marie 00:04:04  Yeah. I mean, and that's really like, what? When we started this podcast, it was like us saying, we want to be able to talk to more teachers because we know that there are teachers out there like us who think the way we do and want to teach the way that we do, but are isolated, but are just, you know, inundated with 16 different preps that they are preparing for or like or whatever it is.

Marie 00:04:26  And so that's where this came from, this conversation. And we've really like come back around in 2025 to let's just make collections. Like Amanda said of thematic and like we're going to build like so this novel in verse is what we're talking about today, novels in verse. We're going to have how many chapters did we say we're going to have? How many parts? Chapter five different chapters. So like you can just progress your way through. You can jump to the part that you actually like. Oh yeah, I'm good to go on this, that and the other. Like as a classroom teacher who's still currently underwater in a classroom, I was like, yep, that's what we need to do. That's what sounds useful to me. Which means I think it's going to sound useful to our fellow colleagues out there in the world. Yeah. And I mean, why would we talk about any other novel in verse than the poet X? Right. Like for our big example of what we're talking about? I mean, today we're going to be talking about like just in general novels and verse.

Marie 00:05:25  But if you've looked ahead at all, if you're on our email list, you have seen in our newsletter that we are going to be doing like a unit makeover on Elizabeth Acevedo, the poet X, it just I love it so much. It's gonna be great.

Amanda 00:05:39  I love it so much too. And I do want to say here, especially for those of you who have been here for a while, we've really been trying to listen to a lot of your feedback. And so one of the things that's really cool about this collection, just this whole concept too, is, you know, we've heard a lot of feedback about, like, ads and like how we've monetized our podcast. And like, Maria and I have always been super transparent about what we do here and like, what what's going on. And so in terms of the way a collection works is, we have a free series of episodes that anyone can listen to. You don't need to pay us a dime. Just show up and it is 100% free.

Amanda 00:06:13  And that is where we want to meet teachers, if that's where you are. If you are looking for a little extra support, we're going to have like different tiers within this collection where you can make a purchase if that would help you or it would make your life easier. We will have that available, and then we will have just different versions of ways to get invested in this collection or in the next one, or whatever you want to however you want it to go. So we really are trying to make sure that at every level, we can be supportive and just kind of help you wherever you are in your journey.

Marie 00:06:45  Yeah. You know what, Amanda? I think what's going to help me right now in my journey is if I go and refill this empty mug of coffee, this empty mug of the whisper of what used to be coffee. No. And so while we do that, I think our friends should probably go and refill their own mugs of whatever it is. And while we do so, we're gonna go ahead and cue the music.

Amanda 00:07:09  You're listening to Brave New Teaching, and we are so much more than a podcast.

Marie 00:07:14  We give teachers the inspiration, support and tools to challenge the status quo.

Amanda 00:07:19  I'm Amanda and I'm a former English teacher from Illinois.

Marie 00:07:22  And I'm Marie, and I'm a high school teacher from Southern California.

Amanda 00:07:26  Join us after the show and happy hour to extend your VMA experience.

Marie 00:07:30  With instant access to our resources, workshops and courses.

Marie 00:07:35  Visit shop for new teaching. Com slash happy hour to join us today. We are so glad you're here. Enjoy the show. All right friends. So let's dive in to chapter one here of this novel's in verse collection. I made the coffee, but I haven't sipped it yet because it's too hot. Okay.

Amanda 00:07:52  And you keep it prepared.

Marie 00:07:54  Okay.

Amanda 00:07:55  Take yourself. Okay, so the first thing we're going to have you do is not only are we going to jump in, but we're going to let you know, like what's waiting for you over in happy hour. So in happy hour there is going to be dropping next week.

Amanda 00:08:07  So this is the last week of January right now where we are next week. So starting in February we're going to be dropping our novels in verse happy hour unit. So this unit that we're going to go through from chapter one to chapter five, we have what's called like a unit sketch, a unit makeover. It's a slide deck that's going to give you access to basically everything that we're talking about and describing. So all of that is what our happy hour teachers are going to be seeing in February. This month, our teachers are finishing up their digital organization. They're backwards planning for this semester. And then starting next week, you'll be able to start jumping into novels and verse. And so this episode is going to talk through basically two avenues that Marie and I have found successful with novels and verse. We're going to anchor our conversation in the poetics, but we understand that not everyone can teach that exact story, but a lot of you do. So we're going to use the novel. We're going to use the novel index.

Amanda 00:09:04  We're going to use the novel in verse. Poet X is kind of our you.

Marie 00:09:07  Need coffee too. It's not just me.

Amanda 00:09:10  We're gonna talk broadly enough that you can insert novel here. And that's important because. Yes. Really? Well.

Marie 00:09:17  That's again, talk about listening to our audience and just knowing the climate in which we live as educators, especially public educators, which we both.

Amanda 00:09:26  Oh yeah. Because poet X is not your, the most chaste option for, for us. So but it's amazing. So we're going to do it. And we love Elizabeth Acevedo.

Marie 00:09:35  None of the classics are chaste either, which is why it's funny. I love it, but okay.

Amanda 00:09:40  So raw and beautiful and oh, it's a.

Marie 00:09:43  It's so good. Well, so one of the things that we also have for you, Amanda, you didn't just say this, did you. Did you talk about our notes sheet that we have for everybody? Okay. So friends, sorry, we're cut all over the place and it is 1,000% my fault.

Marie 00:09:58  I had to show Amanda the heart shaped mug that I'm drinking out of. It is also now like magma, but I'm going to drink it anyways to try to make this a decent episode. We have a freebie that we made for you that can be like Amanda saying where you can, you know, plug and play like insert whatever title here. It's the same sort of thing for this note taking guide basically for students. My idea and Amanda's idea is that because novels and verse are so lyrical, you can listen to something, you can do a read aloud. And that's where students are using this note taking guide. But it basically takes whatever themes you are looking at, whatever text you are looking at, and allows space for writing down evidence of different themes and then analyzing different themes. And it's very graphic. It's got places for like doodle notes and coloring, if that's what helps students stay engaged. It is on our website Brave New Teaching slash theme notes, and it's also in the show notes to this episode, so we'll.

Amanda 00:10:56  Try to throw a picture of it in the show notes too, so you can see what Marie is describing. But it's really cute because so today we're talking about unit possibilities. And I think even before we kind of break into the two avenues. I think what's so exciting about a novel in verse is that you can do it quickly. If you if you don't have time to do a long version, you don't have to. Or if you've got a weird like middle, like you need to do something between units, right?

Marie 00:11:21  And like, it's a palate cleanser. It's a great palate cleanser. Yes.

Amanda 00:11:24  Oh my gosh, a novel inverse mini unit. If you can just grab a novel and verse off of Libby, or even if you buy it on libro FM, you can get through a novel and verse in 3 or 4 hours. So. Well.

Marie 00:11:36  And the beauty of that too, from like a student's perspective, is that it helps to rewrite some of the narratives that kids have in their head, which is that they can't read a whole book or they're not a reader.

Marie 00:11:46  So reading a whole book is just impossible for them. And then you're like, well, this is a novel in verse, but it's a novel. So now you're going to read the whole thing, and they can read through it very quickly. And it helps, like I said, reprogram some of those narratives that our students have about themselves, like not being literary or not being readers or whatever it is.

Amanda 00:12:05  Well, I think on the flip side too, I think novels and verse are really good to pair with other texts. So we're not going to go about like today was not about the mini unit or the paired version, but that's two more ways that novels and verse work really well in curriculum is to boost, like maybe a classic, like I've done a long Way Down with Macbeth. there are different that we've done Frankenstein and punching the air like you definitely can pair it, but today we're really going to focus on two whole class novel inverse options, because of course, you can do choice as well.

Amanda 00:12:38  There's so many ways, right? Yeah yeah yeah.

Marie 00:12:39  So there. Yeah. Do you want to go through. So basically we're talking about like taking a skill based approach or taking a theme based approach. Do you want to dive into the skill based approach. Because I think that's where you definitely found more success with skill based approaches than I have. And I have found that theme is my happy place.

Amanda 00:13:00  So yeah. So when we talk about these two options they both operate under all of the things we've always been teaching you all here at the podcast and in curriculum rehab, right. They both avenues operate underneath an essential question. Both avenues operate under concepts and big ideas first. But when you're kind of narrowing down the direction, a skill based direction for me means a unit that's really focused on learning how to analyze poetry. And it's going to be focused a little bit more on the genre tools. At Maria's licking her mother.

Marie 00:13:39  I'm sorry. No, I had I was trying to do it without distracting you.

Marie 00:13:43  You should have turned your grip. And I'm holding my my microphone in one hand and my mug in the other, and I didn't want the drip to get on my table. Listen, for everyone else.

Amanda 00:13:52  Who's still here, not licking themselves, I mean, or their coffee, please don't lick yourself skills. I'm thinking about poetry all the way through, so. Right. So your focus is going to be your novel and verse, your supplementals are all going to be things that are poems or longer poems or other novels in verse and pieces of that. Right? We're looking more at lyrics, we're looking at short pieces entirely. And the essential question then is also going to be connected to language and the vehicles for, for language and things like that. And that's really going to be a skill direction. I like this option too. If you're going to do like a novels and verse choice unit, because since we're looking at the skills of like how you know, how voice is created or how tone is created, like things like that, you can use pretty much anything the kids really want to.

Amanda 00:14:42  So that's a skill lane.

Marie 00:14:44  That is specific to choice, like. So in my district, a lot of our like upper upper admin, like our district level admin, their solution to a lot of things, and rightly so, but it is a little frustrating from a teacher level is choice. Yeah. Oh you know so and so has an issue with such and such title. Create choice units. Choice choice choice. I know that the most frustrating part is that a lot of people, just when they say that they do have great, amazing intentions, they see all of the success that something like a choice novel unit or a choice whatever unit provides students. But what they don't understand, I think, is how hard it is to find those choices.

Amanda 00:15:27  It is.

Marie 00:15:27  So then that's where a skill focus or like a skill based unit with choices is going to just kind of grease the wheels there and help you find more choices more easily versus something like theme, which is where I always dive straight in because I get all excited about themes and like whether it's choice or an all class unit, whatever it is, focusing on theme for me, like opens up these little pockets of my brain that I go, oh, and I can ask them this question and this question and this question.

Marie 00:16:01  So like whichever one sounds more like, oh yeah, go with that for this moment or whatever. Your students need more. If you're like, know they really need this skill, then do that. I will say theme can be more limiting when it comes to choice or just really any even finding like supplemental text. If you are in a place in a school, in a district, in a state where the titles that you choose are under like extra extra scrutiny theme might just be a little bit more difficult or of an uphill climb, but it also might not. You might be like, oh, actually, it's super easy for me. There are a few things, depending on the course that I'm teaching, that like theme allows a lot more freedom than skill, frankly.

Amanda 00:16:46  And like we said earlier, both need both, right? Like if Marie's going to choose a theme based kind of route versus a skill, it doesn't mean she's going to abandon skill. If I'm going to take a skills based approach, I'm not abandoning right the themes or the big picture things, but we're kind of trying to suss out here for everyone and like, help you brainstorm is what is going to be the thread that really drives home your essential question.

Amanda 00:17:10  Because in chapter two, where we're headed our next episode. Yes. Yes. Right. Like, there are two different essential questions that set up two kind of different units based on where you want to go. So the skill that's pretty much the ins and outs of skill. And the assessment that I think to when we get that direction is going to be kids either producing something using the skills, it's going to be cold read of other authors or speakers using those skills. Like that's kind of that thread. So Marie, why don't you talk about like when you talk about theme and like you look at novels and verse and poet acts, like, what do you see as possibilities for a theme thread?

Marie 00:17:46  Well, I mean, and honestly, to to backtrack just for a second, the big question of skill or theme that we're talking about right here has everything to do with the teacher and their planning process. Really? Like Amanda said, the kids are going to learn the things that you need them to learn, that they need to learn that the standards need them to learn.

Marie 00:18:03  Like you're going to be teaching all of the skills and theme and all of that stuff that you need to teach anyways, but it's just more of like what is my as the instructor first focus going to be? And like, well, like Amanda said, what's the thread? What is going to be driving this train? So the fact that I lean on themes, so I do I teach American literature, 11th grade American literature, I teach it like every year. And because I'm on a quarter system, I teach it twice a year. I do it a lot. I can tell you one thing, not the one thing, but a one thing that is missing from my curriculum is a true look at a feminist lens, and which is shocking for me. But I do a lot of socioeconomic, I do a lot of just age and like generational explorations and looking directly at a gender or a feminist lens is not something that I do a whole ton. And so something like a novel inverse unit with something like The Poet X opens itself up for looking at creators and artists throughout American history who are female or who are looking through a gendered female lens.

Marie 00:19:14  And so that to me, like I was saying, unlocks little pieces of my brain. So if we have something that's like all class, like the poet X all of the Supplementals, which we'll be talking about in a later episode in this collection, also are going to look from a female perspective. That perspective is probably going to be varied having to do with race, socioeconomics. It's place in time, right? You know, historical, social context, all of that. But the thing that's going to link us all together is the idea of not just being American and the American experience, but being a girl, being a young woman, being a woman, being so that I don't know if that actually explained things the way that I meant for them to explain things, but it's just really the approach of the teacher and the planner in how all of this is going to go for your students.

Amanda 00:20:05  Okay, so here's what I want you guys to do. I am going to give you listeners, not you.

Amanda 00:20:09  Marie. You just relax. You just.

Marie 00:20:11  I am a babbling fool today. So, like you, I just said, make sense?

Amanda 00:20:16  Okay, but this what Marie and I are doing. This is exactly how a conversation goes for me with a colleague at the beginning of planning a unit. No. Totally.

Marie 00:20:26  Yeah. Yes, totally.

Amanda 00:20:27  This is the word vomit. Brainstorm. Like we gotta get it all out there. It's got to be a little bit messy. And that's how we roll. So you're here, you're with us. You're in it. We're assuming that you're also tossing around the different possibilities of where does your novel inverse unit go? So question for you if you're thinking about this in your car. The first question I would ask myself is what is missing from my calendar? So those of you guys who are in curriculum rehab, I would open up your year long like your your calendar at a glance and what is missing. And like that's kind of what Marie and I just described.

Amanda 00:20:59  Right. If your calendar is missing content, right, there's you're really missing a perspective, a point of view, a voice, then a thematic approach might be the way to go to fill that missing piece. But if your calendar is missing poetry. Yeah, like you don't have a poetry unit and that's important to you. Or like the the how poets make magic piece of your year is missing. Then maybe a skill path would be best for you. So really, like, you just want to reflect on your year long calendar and figure out what's missing and what would be the best way for a novels inverse unit to fill that. Right? So like we talked about even earlier. Do you need something to fill a gap time wise, or do you just need something short that can do that? Those are the kinds of reflections we want you guys to do today or in conjunction with this episode, because next week we're going to actually get into the essential questions like, we're really going to start to like write things down and decide how these are going to go.

Amanda 00:21:58  And by the time we get to like chapters three, 4 or 5, we're going to actually be walking you through the unit all the way, not just today's was like, right, the brainstorming. And then we're going to get you all the way through. From gateway to close readings to our EQS to assessments Supplementals, we're going to get you all the way to the end. And that's the plan. So yeah, figure out what your what's your year is missing so that you're ready to start jumping in where it makes most sense for you.

Marie 00:22:28  Yes. And we are ready to keep going on this. I'm like excited. I can't stop myself from almost talking about next week's chapter.

Amanda 00:22:38  Well yeah. Well, let's let's let everyone take a breath.

Marie 00:22:40  I know, I know, I'm like, okay, come on guys, let's go. Essential question time. Let's get ready to plan. Know take a breath. Take a week. Take however long you need to take and log in.

Amanda 00:22:49  If you haven't logged in to your curriculum rehab stuff in a while.

Amanda 00:22:51  Those of you who are in there, go log in, take a look at your map and really think about what's missing. If you have a different version of a map like get that out because we are we're here to do the work.

Marie 00:23:01  Yeah, let's do it.

Amanda 00:23:02  We're here to plan.

Marie 00:23:03  And if you haven't downloaded the note sheet yet, the theme notes sheet, brand new teaching slash theme notes or head to our show notes for the episode. And while you're there, make sure that you sign up for our emails so that you can get all kinds of good, fun stuff and get reminded about weekly episodes. Okay, friends, next week we are going to, like Amanda said, dig in to essential questions. We are going to talk more about what is coming to our happy hour friends out of this collection, because we have some good stuff for you. And yeah, I think it's time to go B be gone, friends. Everybody take a take a sip of your coffee or whatever it is.

Marie 00:23:39  Here I go.

Amanda 00:23:40  Here she goes.

Marie 00:23:41  Thank you for hanging out with us. Have a wonderful week at school and we will see you next time. Bye bye.

Amanda 00:23:49  Thanks again for listening to Brave New Teaching.

Marie 00:23:51  We'd love to keep the conversation going over on Instagram.

Amanda 00:23:54  And while you're there, check out the links in our bio for the most up to date events going on in Happy Hour and the brand new teaching community.

Marie 00:24:01  Thanks for being here.

Marie 00:24:02  And have a great week at school.