Ghost Novel Study for Middle School

Jason Reynolds has all my praise. His books have taken some of my most reluctant and disengaged readers and turned them into fans. Seriously. And his novel Ghost is no exception. There are a lot of reasons I love using this novel in the classroom, but at the top is what a quick and fast-paced read it is. Plus, the topic of the story is really relatable and relevant to many students. If you’re planning (or thinking) about reading this book in your middle school classroom, I’m hoping this Ghost novel study guide will give you some helpful pointers.

About Ghost by Jason Reynolds

Ghost was published in 2016. It’s a National Book Award Finalist, and it was nominated for PBS’s The Great American Read – and for good reason. This novel follows Ghost, a middle school track star who grew up with an abusive father. Now, Ghost (AKA Castle Cranshaw) seems to keep causing issues…and then running away from them. If he can get his act together, he could be one of the best runners in the city. But that’s a big if.

This book handles some tough topics, like abuse, but it is written for middle-grade students. Meaning it’s nothing that your 6th-8th grade students can’t handle! Typically, Ghost is read at the beginning of the year with your fiction unit, but it’s also short enough that you could toss it in between units, like before a holiday break.

Prepping for Your Ghost Novel Study

Before you jump into your Ghost novel study, there are a few things you want to think through. This will help you show up prepared, so your unit goes smoothly! First, decide how you’re going to work through the novel in class. There are two parts to this: when students will read and how they’ll work through the text.

Let’s start with when students will read. There are two main choices here: in class or at home. I recommend giving students time to read in class, but if you teach an AP course, it might be the norm for students to read at home. It’s up to you! If your students will read in class, you’ll also want to figure out how you’ll carve out the time for that. Are they reading in small groups? Independently? Listening to the audio? You could rotate through different options or stick with one.

Then, you’ll need to decide how students will work through the text. Outside of simply reading, students will also be analyzing, answering questions, discussing, and writing. So, how will you make that happen?

My personal favorite is through book clubs and Socratic seminars. During book clubs, students meet with a group of students to read, discuss, and work through the text together. I found that students were a lot more engaged with reading when in a small group. One reason being it’s harder to check out when other students are depending on you to help.

Then there are Socratic seminars. This replaced the traditional book discussions in my classroom where I’d stand up, ask a question, and quietly beg students for an answer. 🙃 Instead, they take control of the conversation and bounce ideas off of each other.

Planning Your Ghost Novel Study Unit

Now, the hard part of any novel study: planning! This is the stage where you lay out your unit, lesson by lesson, standard by standard. You know exactly what you’ll teach and how you’ll cover all the elements of fiction within your unit. In my Ghost novel study, I spread the unit across fifteen lessons (with some optional bonus lessons). Each lesson follows a familiar pattern that revolves around Socratic seminars. 

In each lesson, you start by presenting the guiding question, reading a chapter (as a whole group, in book clubs, or independently), completing a quick write, and hosting a Socratic seminar. (If you’re wondering how the heck to fit all that into one class period, check out my workshop, The Socratic Seminar Academy.)

Here’s a peek at my Ghost novel study unit breakdown –

• Pre-Lesson: Socratic Seminar Norms
• Lesson One: Point of View
• Lesson Two: Author’s Purpose
• Lesson Three: Plot
• Lesson Four: Text Structure + Theme
• Lesson Five: Theme
• Lesson Six: Theme
• Lesson Seven: Character Traits
• Lesson Eight: Plot
• Lesson Nine: Point of View
• Lesson Ten: Plot + Inferences
• Lesson Eleven: Character Traits
• Lesson Twelve: Characterization
• Lesson Thirteen: Narrative Point of View
• Lesson Fourteen: Theme + Characterization
• Lesson Fifteen: Theme + Plot
• Bonus Lesson 1: Audio Comparison
• Bonus Lesson 2: Comparing Texts
• Bonus Lesson 3: Objective Summaries

The Ghost novel study includes done-for-you lesson plans, teaching slides, interpretive and guiding questions (for Socratic seminar), interactive notebook pages, rubrics, reading response example, and a whole lot more. Socratic seminar is a big part of this unit because I don’t just want your students to read, I want them to analyze and think deeply about the text!

Socratic Seminar and Ghost

If you’ve struggled to implement Socratic seminars in the past or you’re brand-new to this strategy, it might sound intimidating. But it really comes down to the expectations you set and modeling the process for students. I go super in-depth into how to set up seminars in my workshop, The Socratic Seminar Academy.

But I want to give you a peek into what this looks like in the Ghost novel study. Let’s look at lesson three, as an example. Students will have just read chapter two, and they are working on  plot! The lesson starts by presenting the guiding question: Why doesn’t Ghost do anything for anybody? (I.e., he doesn’t run or play for anybody)? What has caused him to be this way? Then, students read in class, whether in a group, alone, or as a whole class.

Once they’ve read the chapter, students will complete a five-minute quick write about the guiding question. Then, I ask them the interpretive question: Ghost takes care of himself and his mom and has a hard time letting others in. Based on this past, do you think this is a good way

for him to live? Does it keep him safer? Does it prevent him from things? Explain your reasoning. This is what’s going to guide the Socratic seminar conversation! Students will gather in a circle and present their ideas.
In this format, your students – in a single class period – have gone through reading, comprehending, and analyzing. If you’re looking for a Ghost novel study that goes beyond just comprehension, I have just the thing. And it includes all the student and teacher supports you need to implement each lesson without hunting down supplemental resources online.