The Boys in the Boat Creative Chapter Notes for English Language Arts
Are you reading The Boys in the Boats in your English classroom? Do you need a way to boost student engagement and reading comprehension? Are you tired of knowing a great story with various elements of literature is not always keeping your students engaged? Creative chapter notes for the young adult novel will keep your students engaged, boost comprehension, and leave you more excited as you spend the next few weeks reading the book in your English classroom.
What are The Boys in the Boat creative chapter notes?
Creative chapter notes highlight or focus on the key information in a chapter and students fill in the notes as they read the information. Notes can include vocab, inferences, analyzing character quotes, tone, mood, and main events. Each chapter takes a slightly different approach. These notes are specific to the Young Adult novel, The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown.
Why does it work?
Let’s be honest, not all students love reading. When they don’t love reading, they don’t always pay attention…especially when it comes to reading. As a teacher, you know the book is meaningful and well-written. You know the story provides great elements of literature examples, which can lead to strong classroom discussion. However, when students aren’t actively reading, it makes for a stressful and less than enjoyable experience. Creative chapter notes help to keep students focused and engaged, which boosts comprehension. When students are engaged in the text, connections happen and students are more likely to retain the information. And when students are retaining information and making connections, a stronger classroom experience happens for everyone.
What does this look like in the classroom?
I have found creative chapter notes to be most successful when students have the entire set of notes in a packet. This way if a student is absent, they aren’t trying to find a piece of paper or two to get caught up. Students have been less likely to lose a packet.
I prefer students to listen to the story while following along with the notes. Before beginning, I quickly discuss the headings on the notes for the day. Creative chapter notes happen best with jots of information rather than complete sentences or long information. I’ve even noticed students have appeared to zone out a bit, but clue into the headings and quickly re-engage.
I’ve found listening to the chapters to be more beneficial than students reading the chapters independently.
After finishing the chapter, I like to discuss the events with students. Most have completed notes along the way. Some might need to finish a little bit as we discuss.
I do not like to wait until we finish the chapter to hand out the notes. I do not want creative notes to be viewed as a “Caught you” type of moment for students who weren’t focused. I find more value in frontloading the information for students. My expectations are clear of this belief over it being an after-reading resource when they are making an effort to listen and complete notes.
Need a differentiated learning version?
The original creative notes have two chapters per page for each of the 30 chapters and the prologue. If your students would best succeed with fewer words, the differentiated version only contains one chapter per page. All of the information is the same for either version. This works great for resource or co-teaching classrooms to follow along without needing to make an extra job for the classroom or resource teacher.
All 30 chapters can be found here. It is also available in the Taco Bout FACS TPT store.
Save money and purchase the bundle of both versions here.
Need differentiated notes for your students? It’s available here and also in the Taco Bout FACS TPT store in a differentiated version.