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Teaching Divergent: YA Lit Ideas and Research Projects

7/28/2013

37 Comments

 
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Thank you so much for all of the emails and comments regarding this post and the materials I created. As of 9/4/14, the materials are now available on TeachersPayTeachers at my (newly created) store, Teaching the Apocalypse. Please check it out and download the materials from there (you'll have to create an account to download the materials). If they are useful to you, please RATE THEM on this page, and leave comments. You can FOLLOW ME on TpT, where I will soon post more materials and activities.
"We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another."
~Veronica Roth, Divergent
Picture
As you are likely aware, Divergent by Veronica Roth is a young adult dystopian novel that was first released in April of 2011. The second in the series, Insurgent, was released in May of 2012. According to my students, the next book, Allegiant, will be released in October of this year. The first novel, which is what I will focus on in this post, revolves around the choices that a teenage girl must make as she moves toward adulthood. It is set in a dystopian futuristic Chicago where the society is divided into factions based on which attribute they most value (bravery, truth, peace, knowledge, or selflessness). At the beginning of the book, the main character must choose her faction, and once she makes that choice, she must learn to live with the impact of that decision. Meanwhile, the world around her is rapidly changing and deteriorating in ways she only begins to discover. For more information about the book series, you can see Veronica Roth's page. Here's the trailer for the movie to be released in March 2014.

Above all else, I judge teen lit by how much excitement it generates in my students. We read Divergent in August, and I still had students talking about the movie and showing me images of the new book cover as late as May. I had three copies of Insurgent for the classroom, and they were constantly in demand and read (voluntarily) by almost half of my students. This book series resonates with the students and generates a tremendous amount of interest and excitement in reading. It is exciting and dares students to consider their own bravery, but it is also the story of a teenage girl discovering love and romance, which the students enjoy as much as they do the intensity of the action.

Last year, I began the year for English 9 with Divergent. The unit revolved around active engagement and how to make choices in the classroom and in the community. One of the things I loved about beginning the year that way was that students used Divergent during our SSR (sustained silent reading) time. That made it easier for them to adjust to SSR, and it was also nice because it allowed students who flew through the reading to move on to other books while giving students who took longer to read the support and time that they needed to get through the novel.

The novel focuses on choice--the fact that above all else, the choices that we make determine what happens in our lives. It also highlights the interrelationship between choices and the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Because it was the beginning of the year and the beginning of my students' high school careers, we focused on parallels between choices in the novel and choices that they were making in their own lives and as citizens within the school community. I used nonfiction and poetry supplements to enhance the novel and highlight the skills that we were developing.

The unit revolved around three essential questions:
  • What does it mean to be an engaged learner?
  • Why is it important to understand your role in society?
  • How do we make choices and how do those choices impact our community?

As far as skills are concerned, I focused on point-of-view, characterization, tone, inference and close reading skills (including annotation). As we moved toward the end of the novel, we focused on theme and finding textual support to prove theme statements. The students completed plot questions and double entry journals for homework (I've attached a sample of that assignment below). For assessment, I used quick reading quizzes and daily formative skills checks. We had discussions and practiced the skills with supplemental readings. As far as major assessments, I used two skills assessments. The first was an excerpt from a major scene in the novel and the second was a cold reading passage. We also had a Socratic discussion at the end of the novel for which the students prepared, and the students wrote responses to some guided questions on Schoology prior to the discussion. For more information about Socratic discussions, see my previous post.

The document below includes the way that I broke up the reading, a description of their homework and a model of the double-entry journal. It also includes the homework for chapters 1-4. In the journals, the students moved from practicing inferences to tone and finally to theme statements. If you like this activity and are interested in having more of the packet, please feel free to contact me directly. These journal entries could certainly be modified to use in class as a way to reflect on and respond to the reading.

The final project required students to create their own factions. It was a research project and it included a group presentation. The students had to come up with the faction characteristics and create a name with a complex meaning. They had to find a possible representative from real life of that faction and research the person's life as an illustration of how that person demonstrated the traits of the faction, and they had to make connections to the novel with passages from the book. Here is a PDF of the assignment sheet, the rubric for the projects, the audience participation guide, and the peer and self-evaluation that I created last year.
Phew! That just about sums it up, I guess. I do have more materials and activities that went with the unit (in case you're interested), but I tried to include the major assignments and the general approach.  As far as changes for this coming year, I will likely NOT teach tone as one of the main skills with this novel. I discovered that because the novel has so much dialogue, many students became confused between characterization and tone. They would focus on a character's specific tone in his/her words instead of finding the tone of the passage, and it was challenging to explain the nuances of the difference. They found clarity as we looked at descriptive passages, but it was perhaps an unnecessary confusion. I might also drop the double entry journal entries down from two entries to one (or have them do one at home and one in class). The length of the novel was overwhelming for some students, so I will do more next year to help them with modifications as needed. We have a couple of copies of the audio of the novel, and one of our ELL teachers created chapter summaries of the novel that we'll use for struggling students. I'm also considering teaching Romeo and Juliet first this coming year so that students can take a field trip to see the play at the amazing Staunton replica of the Blackfriar Playhouse before it leaves in November, so I will likely introduce some of the concepts such as inference and close reading skills at an earlier time.

As a final thought, I'd like to encourage teachers considering teaching YA lit in the classroom to take the plunge. At my school, many people are very supportive--in fact, this last year, we purchased Divergent and the whole school read it at some point during the year. I know that may not be the case everywhere, but I find that we as educators can continue discovering the balance between classical, canonical texts and contemporary texts written for teens. Many students (both boys and girls)  told me that Divergent was the first book that they had honestly read from cover to cover, and that paved the way to a much more prosperous year as far as silent reading and setting individual reading goals. What I love most about YA lit is the way that the stories address complex issues (such as why wars happen and how to make difficult choices and face your fears) in ways that are accessible and appealing to teens.  I've read SO MANY amazing YA books that would work well in the classroom. The Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare is amazing, as is the Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion (how do I not have a post on that novel yet? Coming soon...) would be an awesome novel to teach, and it would work nicely as an exploration of text-to-text comparisons with a focus on audience since the film and novel are quite different. I also love the idea of teaching the first book in a series because that gives students a great jumping off point for their own reading. As far as realistic fiction, I just read Hold Still by Nina LaCour, which addresses the impact of suicide on a community, and our department discussed teaching John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, which includes teen romance, the role of fate, and illness.

Have you taught (or are you considering teaching) any YA lit novels in your class? Please share your comments and ideas! I look forward to learning what others are doing with this amazing genre.
37 Comments
Andrea
12/1/2013 11:32:23 am

Would you be willing to send me your materials to use in class?

Reply
Ashley Dickson-Ellison
12/31/2013 04:23:21 am

Andrea,

I think that you and I corresponded through email, but if not, you may contact me through the contact tab at the top of the page. Thanks!

Ashley

Reply
Joe Kozak
8/16/2014 11:38:25 am

Ashley,

Could you send me the materials you have for the 'Divergent' Faction project? (Particularly the project description pages and rubrics). I am teaching Divergent in my gifted Lang Arts class, and that project sounds great!

Jessica Pilarski
12/28/2013 03:48:18 am

Hello, I am in my first year of teaching. I am looking to teach Divergent to my struggling readers next semester. In your post it says to contact you if we request any other materials. I was wondering if you had the reading questions to go along with your reading schedule. Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

Reply
Ashley Dickson-Ellison
12/31/2013 04:21:47 am

Jessica,
Thank you for reading. I'd be happy to send you materials! I have reading questions and journals, and I can also send you the materials for the faction project. Most people email me through the contact tab at the top of the page. That will give me your email address (though it will not be made public), and then I can send you the files directly through email.

Reply
Genna
1/9/2014 09:07:33 pm

Hello, I too am in my first year of teaching. Next year I want to read Divergent with my students. I conducted a small Survey of four popular book titles my students would like to read and Divergent was the most popular one. Would you be able to help me out with any advice as to how to go about teaching this novel or any advice on this book for that matter?

Thank you so much!

Brittany Goza link
7/11/2014 02:45:45 am

I would also like to have any materials/documents that you used for this unit :) Thank you!

Brittany Goza
7/11/2014 02:46:30 am

Would you please send these to me as well?

Donna Lamberson
1/8/2014 03:14:32 am

Would you please send me your materials? I am also wondering what nonfiction and poetry supplements you paired up with this novel.

Reply
Ashley Dickson-Ellison
1/17/2014 01:40:06 am

Donna,
If you'd like for me to send materials, please use the contact tab at the top of the page to send me an email. I've gotten a ton of requests lately, so there may be a bit of a lapse before I can respond, but I will send materials your way as soon as I can if you email.

As far as text pairings, last year, I taught the novel at the beginning of the year, so many of the texts I used focused on how to be an engaged learner or an active citizen. I also focused on point-of-view at the beginning of the year and did some activities to analyze how changing the point-of-view changes the text. However, I think articles on government control and the quest for utopias would be great pairings.

For poems, I used poems such as: "Curiousity" by Alastair Reed for discussion of engagement, "Listen" by Miller Williams for tone analysis, "The Quiet World" by Jeffery McDaniel for theme statement creation and support, and "No Images" by William Waring Cuney for point-of-view analysis. Hope that helps!

Reply
Leigha A. link
1/30/2014 10:35:08 am

Thank you so much for the pairing suggestions! So far our unit has been going really well and the students are starting to really get into the book. We have been focusing on Vocabulary for the last 2 weeks (thanks to lots of snow days) and developing schema, next week we are focusing on characterization. It's coming along and your materials have been a great help!! Thank you so much!

Brooke
1/15/2014 09:28:10 pm

Hello! This is such an awesome break down of a unit. I am in my first year of teaching and we are going to be reading Divergent. Is there anyway that I can get a copy of those materials sent to me? Also, I loved your idea of nonfiction pieces and poetry to pair with the novel. Do you mind sharing with me what pieces you chose?

Thank you so much! As a first year teacher, I am so grateful for helpful teachers!

Reply
Ashley Dickson-Ellison
1/17/2014 01:44:30 am

Brooke,

Best wishes with the rest of your first year! As I mentioned in the comments above, if you would like materials, please click on the contact tab at the top of the page and shoot me an email that way. I'm having trouble keeping up with demand right now, but I will respond as soon as I can. I mentioned the pairings I used last year in the response to Donna above, but let me know if you have any other questions or if I can do more to help.

If you're looking for other fiction pairings, you could certainly pair this novel with short stories that address similar issues or themes. "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula LeGuin or "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut both come to mind, though I haven't read either story in several years. Hope that helps!

Reply
Brooke
1/20/2014 07:01:13 am

Thank you! I really appreciate your help. Have a great year!

Cassie Goodwin
1/27/2014 12:05:48 am

I am interested in more of your resources you used to teach 'Divergent' with your students. I will begin teaching this in about two weeks with hopes to take them to see it in theaters when it comes out in March.

Thank you!

Reply
Andrea link
3/11/2014 05:00:44 am

Would you be willing to send me the other materials you have? I would very much like to make my own unit plan around Divergent and feel it would help me a lot to have something to model after. I absolutely love your ideas for how to use the book and am really looking forward to doing this with my students.

Reply
Marissa
3/19/2014 10:54:03 pm

It looks like you have some great resources, which I may be able to incorporate into my upcoming unit with Divergent. Could you please send me the documents so that I may use them as well? Thank you!

Reply
Koretta Tesfai
4/28/2014 08:27:46 pm

I would love to have a copy of your materials. I too will be teaching this book in the fall. I appreciate your response in this matter. Have a nice day!

Reply
Wendy Vallelonga link
6/25/2014 01:36:33 pm

Hello! I'm relief teaching in Western Australia and am reading "Divergent" to my class with absolutely no background with this novel. I love your in depth discussions/writing journal activity that accompanies the novel. Would you mind please sharing your materials. Cheers! Wendy

Reply
Brittany Goz link
7/11/2014 02:41:20 am

YA has been extremely successful in my classroom. In my English I class, we read The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay last year. Students were begging to read on days when I planned other activities or lessons. Students were excited and EAGER to read. This year I fell in love with the Divergent trilogy, and plan to teach the first novel in my English II class. I am looking forward to this year with YA texts.

Reply
Miss Luciana link
9/23/2014 01:33:01 am

Hi! Could you send me the materials to work with my class? I teach English in an Argentinian High School and my students are loving the book! I think that the activities you designed are great I would love to be able to use them in class, with your permission, of course.

Reply
Ranae Watts
10/10/2014 12:02:00 am

How do I purchase access to this unit???? It is exactly what I'm looking for!!!

Reply
jeremy
1/3/2015 02:20:49 am

I love your site and information. I am planning on teaching my Utopian/Dystopian unit soon after we return from Christmas break. I sure would love to see if you would be willing to share the other Chapter Questions for all the reading sections.

Reply
Shuja
1/14/2015 04:08:22 pm

I have to submit "Critical analysis on research papers on divergent"..
For that I need the research papers... can you please email me the research papers if you have them asap..
Thanks..

Reply
Visionary Stacey link
2/22/2015 06:46:03 am

Nice essential questions! Thanks for the ideas!

Reply
Saja
3/26/2015 08:37:04 am

Thanks for posting! I've bookmarked your site. One of my kids is reading Divergent, another read Paper Towns and another Cinder. Terrific reading!

Reply
Elizabeth
9/14/2015 06:25:27 am

Hello,

LOVED all your resources and ideas for teaching this Unit. I'm a first year teacher and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind sending me the materials that you used for the unit. Thanks!!

Reply
sop format for mba link
11/15/2015 07:26:20 am

I think that the activities you designed are great I would love to be able to use them in class with your permission of course.

Reply
Gemma
2/21/2016 03:53:30 pm

Teachers are great people! Thank you for sharing your ideas, Ashley. I'm a drama teacher and am about to teach literature for the first time. I would thoroughly appreciate any resources you are willing to share by email. Thank you so much!

Reply
Cherilyn Barrett
9/16/2016 12:37:42 pm

I'd love to have your resources. I'm teaching Divergent to my class. I have found some but am still collecting more to pick the best fit for my students.
Many thanks!

Reply
Shalom Logos
10/13/2016 02:29:06 pm

I just came across Divergent last weekend and I immediately wanted to adapt that theme in my classroom. I'm a first year teacher doing my fellowship with Teach For India. I was looking for resources to help me out and your article is of great help. Thanks a lot :)

Reply
Jean
6/18/2017 01:57:25 pm

Hi I just came across your website this week. I was looking for resources to help teach Divergent. Many thanks.

Reply
mangarockapk.info link
9/4/2018 06:46:14 am

Very nice post, I certainly love this website, keep on it. :)

Reply
Laura
10/31/2018 07:55:14 am

Do you mind sending me your faction project and other assignments beyond chapter 4? I plan on teaching this novel this year. Great resource, thank you!

Reply
roxana
3/18/2019 02:20:01 pm

Hi Ashley! Could you please send me your faction project and other assignments beyond Divergent? I plan on teaching this theme during the first term this year! I will be pleased and greatful of receiving your material!
Regards, Roxana

Reply
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    K. Ashley Dickson-Ellison is a former high school English teacher (who is now an instructional technology teacher) interested in exploring the integration of trending young adult literature into the English classroom experience. Ashley is also a member of the podcast Unabridged; check out the podcast site below.

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