Novel MS ELA

Novel MS ELA Curriculum

Novel’s MS ELA is a novel-based, research-grounded, and knowledge-building ELA curriculum, designed for a 60-minute reading and writing block for grades 6-8. The scope and sequence carefully balances literary and informational text selections that offer mirrors and windows for students, build knowledge, skill, and rigor across the grade levels, and ensure students are prepared for the rigors of high school and beyond. The curriculum is aligned to Common Core State Standards and is designed around instructional routines aligned to the Science of Reading.

As the name “Novel” suggests, Novel MS ELA centers the reading of full novels in every unit, a unique offering in a curriculum landscape that increasingly relies on passage-based reading. Our curriculum also offers opportunities for teacher choice of course pathway in choices between different options for core texts in several units.

Another key differentiator of our curriculum is usability and clarity of exemplars, which offer value for both the veteran teacher, as well as the more novice teacher.

Our robust suite of instructional materials includes the following for every unit of study:

• unit plans, text selection rationale, and standard mapping;

• daily lesson plans which embed guidance for supporting diverse learners and multilingual learners;

• editable daily classwork handouts and daily differentiated handouts for diverse learners;

• daily slide decks aligned to the lesson;

• a diverse array of formative and summative assessments, including cold-passage quizzes and tests, on-demand writing, Socratic seminars and other oral assessments, process-based performance task writing, and other daily assessments of varying formats;

• robust exemplars, rubrics, and norming materials for all assessments;

  • our partnership with EnlighenAI further supports teachers with AI-powered and trained grading and feedback for all Novel writing assignments;

• even more guidance to support instructional routines and implementation, all outlined in our MS Teacher Toolkit.