Companion Website: Multi-Genre Writing Project for any Novel
- PDF
Google Apps™
Description
Students write about one book using different genres of writing to create a companion "book" (really, a website) to a novel! There is a heavy focus on text structure in this unit.
This was inspired by Lucy Calkins’ Unit of Study for Middle School Writing About Reading: From Reader’s Notebooks to Companion Books. Instead of writing companion books, I opted to have them make websites. To be honest, this does not really match up with her mini-lessons.
These are the goals of this unit:
- Identify text structure and analyze mentor texts that are companions to popular books, movies, or television shows.
- Write using different text structures.
- Determine "chapters" or sections to a website companion.
- Create the website!
Outline of the unit:
- Students analyze mentor texts noticing their text structures and general setup.
- They write about a topic of their choice using different text structures.
- Ideas for their own companion "book" will be organized into different types of text structure.
- A focus of four major components for their sites/"books" will be discussed and brainstormed. The four sections will consist of: narrative (fan-fiction), explanatory (all-about), investigation (real-world connections), author's craft (literary analysis).
- They spend time brainstorming and writing all four of those sections.
- A website is created!
What you get:
- Digital notebook for students to brainstorm, take notes, and prepare their website.
- Sample slides.
- Rubrics and checklists that are editable.
- Sample student finished product.
- **There is nothing in here that teaches students how to design a website...only the guidelines for what needs to be included. **
This entire unit followed the following units in my classroom:
- Investigating Characterization: DIGITAL Interactive Notebook (Units of Study)
- Realistic Fiction Writing Digital Interactive Notebook / Unit
- Historical Fiction DIGITAL Interactive Notebook (Units of Study)
This took about a month/4 weeks with my 7th graders.
*** This was created to be used with Google Classroom and/or Google Suite. Please email me with questions/concerns...I almost always fix them if reasonable! ***
© Copyright 2022 M. Mariano. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to copy pages specifically designed for student or teacher use by the original purchaser or licensee. This is intended to be used by one teacher unless additional licenses have been purchased. The reproduction of any other part of this product is strictly prohibited.
