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THE NOVEL

Module II: Rivers and Tributaries
Teacher Facilitation Guide

The following curriculum materials are designed to be used with the Achievement Television program Advocacy and Citizenship. VHS tapes of the program can be ordered through the Gift Shop of the Academy of Achievement web site.

Program Overview
The second video segment focuses on how a novelist weaves various tributaries or elements into the flow of the river or novel. The work to develop a coherent and compelling whole takes talent and skill that is developed over time. The first step is being able to know when a novelist has these elements under control. Using successful novelists as inspiration and models, students can begin to develop their fiction writing skills.

Viewing/Facilitation Strategies

• Introduce the Pre-Viewing Activity to the entire class. After students complete the Story Map brainstorm activity, allow time for them to share their ideas.
• View video segment I and if time allows, immediately break into groups for the group activity.
• During a following class period, have the telecast available for review. Ask students to select a Curriculum Connection Activity to complete independently or with a partner.
• Assign the research project as a class requirement or as an optional independent project. project.

Student Academic Standards:

• Knows the defining characteristics of a variety of literary forms and genres including the novel.
• Analyzes the use of complex elements of plot in specific literary works (e.g., time frame, cause-and-effect relationships, conflicts, resolution)
• Relates personal response or interpretation of the text with that seemingly intended by the author

Student Activities

Pre-Viewing Activity:
After a class discussion about writing a novel, students individually complete a story map activity that challenges them to graphically depict the structure of the Little Red Riding Hood story.

Group Activity
In small groups, students describe how they would develop a real event in both a journalistic and fictional way.

Curriculum Connections Activities

• Comparative Literature: N. Scott Momaday - Imitating as Practice
• Technology: Rita Dove - The Novel and Technology

Research Project
Students research how a good idea still needs the spark of identification in order to develop as a novel.

Terms to Discuss

• Tributaries
• Voice
• Imitation
• Bolstered
• Unconscious
• Exonerate
• Genesis