Text Excerpts vs. Novel Studies: Striking a Balance

Many adults recall the feeling of coming in from recess and settling in for the read aloud. That eager feeling of finding out what would happen next to the characters you and your classmates have been closely following in the latest novel.  You sat, with rapt attention, as the teacher read with great expression.  There was no jotting.  No assessment.  Sometimes, there was a bit of a discussion, a word defined, or a quick think aloud.  But usually it was just a time to enjoy the story.  To this day, I vividly remember my own teachers reading The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, Hatchet, and The Secret Garden.  

Maybe, like me, you’re also an avid reader, and you also remember looking forward to those short, sacred minutes when all your work was done and you got to just read your own book.  This is how I came to devour all of the Sweet Valley High and Judy Blume books, as well as every Apple paperback I could get my hands on. I’m dating myself, I know, but you get the point.

Hopefully, no matter your age, you’re lucky like me and got to experience these same special moments.  Or at least one or the other.  It’s moments like these that nurture a love of books.  Moments like these serve as a way to build a shared experience in which the class can come together as a community.  

It’s through this kind of exposure to whole books that children discover who they are as readers, and it’s how they become exposed to a wide variety of texts.  

A big part of the magic–and the importance–of this experience lies in the following of the characters’ stories from beginning to end.  

If you’re a reader, you understand this deeply.  There is nothing quite like meeting a new character. Not just getting to know who they are on the surface, but who they are at heart.  They become people you’ve met,who’ve now touched your life, and in that, they teach us a little more about empathy, resilience, kindness, perseverance, and so much more. They teach us about the human condition.

But here’s the thing.  In order to get to that end–that wonderful, lesson-teaching, carry-with-you-forever end, we have to experience the whole story.  From start to finish.  You just can’t possibly get to the same result with only excerpts.

Unfortunately, more and more often in schools today, kids are getting nothing more than a steady diet of short text excerpts, to the exclusion of rich and varied whole texts that used to be so commonplace in schools.

Not only does this rob students of this rich experience, it does little to build their stamina for reading. If kids only get exposure to short, partial sections of texts, they can’t learn to hold onto parts of the beginning of the story as the rest unfolds over time.  They don’t fully build the skill of recognizing through lines of theme development.  A steady diet of only excerpts deprives our students from experiencing what makes a story so wonderful.

“And we wonder why we seem to be turning from a nation of readers into a nation of watchers.” 

Pernille Ripp, author of Passionate Readers

While evidence-based empirical research for elementary or middle school students doesn’t yet exist on this, our own experience (and common sense) would suggest that it’s true.  Tim Shanahan concurs, saying that “[h]aving to maintain attention for several weeks and sustaining the memory demands required of reading an entire book should be good for kids. There may be no research on this, but it is a possibility.” 

Not only was this a possibility for myself as a child, but it was also a strong possibility for the 15 groups of students I taught.  I watched it happen, again and again and again. It’s a possibility I’d never give up. On the flip side, Karen Vaites and The Curriculum Insight Project are quick to remind that “there is no evidence that drilling kids with reading passages and comprehension questions improves state test scores,” either.

Curricula that contain only text excerpts have recently been under fire.

In this Substack post put out by Karen Vaites and the Curriculum Insight Project, the authors call out one very widely used curriculum for including “only short texts and excerpts.”  The problem, they go on to say (in the 6th grade curriculum), is that “[t]he average length of those texts is 7.3 pages. The longest text is just 18 pages.”  And there are a lot of pictures included in those 7-18 pages.  Translation:  kids aren’t reading very much. 

This was also the topic of a recently published article in The Atlantic, when college lit professor Nicholas Dames became flabbergasted upon realizing that lately,  “[m]any students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.”  The article went on to theorize why. 

When Dames asked one of his students about it, she told him that “at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.”  Whether this is true of all college students, elite or otherwise, is certainly up for debate.  But it does bear consideration.

When, beginning in elementary school, this practice is compounded year after year, as following a curriculum with total fidelity would have us do, it’s no wonder our students gravitate only to low-level, picture-laden, graphic novels–if they read at all. 

Nor is it any wonder why our students just don’t have the stamina for reading longer texts.  Compounded with the effects of what technology has done to kids’ attention, we’re not doing them any favors with using only excerpts.

Please do not misunderstand me.  There’s a definite need for including text excerpts in our lessons.  

With the short amount of time that we all have, excerpts can really get the job done.  They’re also a great way to build a little text set around a topic to build background knowledge, as several boxed curriculums do.  Just about anything reading-related–and of course also writing-related–can be taught through excerpts.  

But using only excerpts can have its repercussions.

However…

I’m also not saying we should teach everything through novel studies.  I’ve never been a proponent of that.  While absolutely wonderful, novels take weeks to get through, which means less exposure to more books–which also means fewer genres, authors, and perspectives.  Less vocabulary and knowledge-building.  Less room for reading-writing connections to be made across the curriculum. 

Sometimes, teachers even drag novels out over an entire semester, which is what obliterated my own two daughters’ love of reading all through middle and high school. 

This is another case of both/and, not either/or.  As it is with so much in literacy.  

I’m not going to go into the reasons why the curriculums that include only text excerpts have become so widely adopted across the US.  For that, I encourage you to read the Substack article referenced earlier.  (Spoiler alert:  it’s all about money). 

Instead, I’m here to remind you that you are the decision-maker in your classroom.  

Yes, you may have to follow a curriculum.  But there are decisions you can make within those parameters. You are the determiner of the purpose and the intended (and unintended) consequences of what’s done and what’s not.  No program is perfect.  Not one.  Every curriculum needs tweaking to fit the needs of our students. 

In a 2020 EdWeek article, education expert, thought leader, and author Dr. Peter DeWitt reminds us that “the lack of diligence toward sticking to one thing and making it better, rather than trying to find the silver bullet for increasing student achievement” is what so often leads to teacher (and student) frustration and less than desirable results.”

While every curriculum has many positive merits, none is a silver bullet.  

In the EdWeek article cited above, DeWitt goes on to say that “[g]ood change can only happen when people understand the reality of their current situation, have the vision to know where they must go, and muster the courage to put that self-reflection to action.”  Wise words that we must live by for the success of our students.  

That’s why it’s up to us to make room for the art of teaching.  To make the professional decisions to mold what we’re handed into something better.  Something that truly delivers what our students need.  

This is our responsibility–as teachers, instructional coaches, and building administrators.  Because it’s this thoughtful decision-making that will make the biggest impact on student learning. 

“It starts with us.  It starts with the way we choose to spend our time.  It starts with our lesson planning.  We nurture the seeds of reading and make the decisions that will help them grow or wither.  With us, the reading should start so that it has a chance to continue once they leave us.  It is as simple as that.”

Pernille Ripp, author of Passionate Readers

The freedom to make instructional decisions can vary widely from school to school, for sure, but there are always small tweaks that can be made while still remaining true to the curriculum.  

In terms of making room for whole texts even if your curriculum doesn’t include them, here are some simple, easy-entry ideas:

• Implement book clubs during the reading block.  Book clubs also work beautifully in small groups.

• Use the curriculum’s excerpt as a preview to build excitement, and read the whole book during other times of the day.

• Scrap the excerpt entirely and use the real book during lessons. This will mean starting the book before the lessons begin and ending it later, but there are always small snippets of time in the day to make this happen.

• Use those small snippets of time (after recess, close to dismissal, morning meeting) to read aloud a novel that ties to your curriculum’s essential question or content for even more bang for your buck.

Kids need experience with entire books and text excerpts. Not one or the other.  

Both offer different and important learning opportunities.  It’s a balancing act, requiring us to make key decisions.  Tim Shahahan explains this well, saying that it’s all about “balancing the needs for sustained attention and stamina and the possibility of exposing kids to some really great novels against exposing kids to a broader and more varied experience with elements of literature, literary works, and racial, ethnic, and gender sources.” 

Our students need both experiences. They also deserve it. 

And it’s up to us to make it happen.  

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Who is Coach from the Couch??  I’m Michelle Ruhe, a 25+ year veteran educator, currently a K-5 literacy coach.  I continue to learn alongside teachers in classrooms each and every day, and it’s my mission to support as many teachers as I can. 

Because no one can do this work alone. I’m available to you, too, through virtual coaching calls!  Simply email me at michelle@coachfromthecouch.com or reach out for a coaching call.  I’m here to partner with you to ensure that your reading block is as purposeful as it can be for your students!

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