Novel

Hana's Suitcase
Activities to accompany Hana's Suitcase
The novel, Hana's Suitcase, is the true story of 13-year old Hana Brady. She was a Jewish girl who was arrested by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz, from which she never returned. All that remained of her was her suitcase. When an educator with the Tokyo Holocaust Education Resource Center received the suitcase as one of the exhibits for the center, she immediately started a quest to find out more about this girl. Her efforts took her to Czechoslovakia and Germany. Eventually she was able to ...

John Fenzel: Author's Notes and Tips for Writing Your Novel
Where Should I Start in Writing My Novel?
At some point in our lives, most of us have at least thought about writing a novel. We may have even written a chapter or two, but never managed to finish it or grew discouraged once we found out how difficult writing a good novel can be. Before finishing my first novel, The Lazarus Covenant, I started several other stories; but once I returned from a few deployments in the Balkans, I began writing in earnest--and more than a decade later managed to actually complete it. There have been many ...

100 ways students can respond to a novel
Ways students can interact with a text and create a constructive response
Students should be able to do more than just read a novel and answer questions to ensure that they understand what they have read. One of the outcomes of English Language Arts with regard to teaching the novel is that students should be able to respond to the novel in different ways. They should interact with the text and make it relevant to their own lives. Prior knowledge of the subject plays a part in student's comprehension of any text that they read. The theory of multiple intelligences...