A Guide to Your Restart Novel Study

A middle school teacher’s version of winning the lottery is when you find a class novel that every kid is hooked on. That was Restart by Gordon Korman for me! I didn’t have to do much convincing with this one. From the first chapter, where it opens with the scene of Chase Ambrose confused and in a hospital, your students will be along for the ride. Of course, getting students engaged in a novel is a win. But getting them to think deeply and analyze the text? That’s the real aim. I want to take you inside my Restart novel study, so you can see how I helped students dive deep into this text.

About Restart by Gordon Korman

If you haven’t read Restart yet, you are in for a treat. This novel follows Chase Ambrose, the popular kid in school who is also a ruthless bully. The story starts with Chase in the hospital after falling off the roof, and he doesn’t remember a thing. He has to relearn everything about his life, from his name to his friends. Kids at school have a mixed reaction to his return. Some are excited. Others are scared. Chase slowly discovers the person he was and has to decide who he wants to be.

This book is commonly used in middle school, grades 6-8, but it could be a good fit for upper elementary students as well, or low-level high schoolers. The content of the novel is super middle-grade friendly. There’s no violence or f-bombs. There are a lot of positive messages and role models, making it not just a good story but also a great conversation starter.

Restart by Gordon Korman is realistic fiction. Personally, I like to use it in my realistic fiction unit, but you could use it in a regular fiction unit. It’s also not crazy long, sitting at around 250 pages, so you could squeeze it in before a holiday break or another period in the year when you’re short on time.

Laying Out Your Restart Novel Study

Once you’ve committed to teaching a Restart novel study, it’s time to lay it all out! You’ll want to figure out exactly how much time to give the novel, how you want to work through the novel, how to get students excited about reading, and so on.

Let’s start with time. I’d give yourself at least two weeks to read and analyze Restart. As I mentioned above, this book is about 250 pages. It’s not too long, but you don’t want to rush through it either. Especially because there is a lot of good stuff in there to chat about.

Then, decide how you’ll read the novel with students. Are you going to read it as a whole class? Have students read at home? Place students into book clubs? My personal preference is book clubs because they give students autonomy over the novel. There’s more buy-in and, therefore, more engagement.

If your students really struggle with independent reading, though, you might want to start by building a reading community and reading whole-group style. Ultimately, it’s up to you! You get to make the best choice for your classroom.

Planning Your Restart Novel Study

Once you’ve ironed out some of the high-level details, it’s time to get to the nitty-gritty. You need to map out your Restart novel study from start to finish. In my Restart book unit, I cover the entire book in about 3 weeks (if you include the pre-lesson and bonus lessons). The backbone of this unit is the Socratic Seminars. This novel study focuses less on little activities or comprehension worksheets and instead encourages the students to think critically about the text. (I’ll share more about how I use Socratic Seminar in the next section.)

Each lesson follows a similar flow. 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 the exact breakdown of the Restart novel study – 

• Pre-Lesson: Socratic Seminar Norms
• Lesson One: Point of View
• Lesson Two: Plot and Text Structure
• Lesson Three: Plot
• Lesson Four: Point of View
• Lesson Five: Text Evidence and Point of View
• Lesson Six: Theme
• Lesson Seven: Compare and Contrast
• Lesson Eight: Compare and Contrast- Audio
• Lesson Nine: Compare and Contrast- Texts
• Lesson Ten: Plot and Author’s Purpose
• Lesson Eleven: Plot and Author’s Purpose
• Lesson Twelve: Plot Development
• Lesson Thirteen: Compare and Contrast
• Lesson Fourteen: Text Evidence
• Lesson Fifteen: Theme and Objective Summary
• Bonus Lesson One: Point of View Influence
• Bonus Lesson Two: Comparing Texts
• Bonus Lesson Three: Objective Summaries

This Restart novel study covers all of the major fiction standards. It also includes all of the resources you need to easily bring this unit to your classroom (not late nights trying to piece your novel study together). The unit 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. 

Using Socratic Seminar with Restart

Socratic Seminar is a big part of my Restart novel study, which might sound intimidating if you’ve never used Socratic Seminars or had success with them. But don’t stress yet. My unit includes all the resources you need to make it effective, from the pre-lesson to set up seminars with students to the guiding questions to implement it.

I want to show you what a typical lesson in this unit looks like and how Socratic Seminars are used, so it feels less mysterious and overwhelming.

Let’s look at lesson three, which focuses on plot. This lesson is aligned to five literature and one writing standard. The lesson starts by sharing the guiding question, “What does Chase start to think about his previous self as he spends time around people that knew him before the accident?” Then, students will read chapters 5-6. 

After they read, they’ll complete a quick write activity answering the guiding question. Then, the interpretive question is introduced: How do our actions reveal our character as human beings? Do you think actions speak louder than words? Students will gather in a circle for a Socratic Seminar and discuss the interpretive question. They can use their quick write and evidence from the text to back up their stance. Lastly, students will write a reading response paragraph answering the interpretive question. They can use what was discussed in the seminar to help them!
In just one class period, students have read, discussed, analyzed, and written. It’s all packed in there, without it being overly complicated. If you want a Restart novel study that goes beyond the surface-level activities and comprehension worksheets, you’ll want to grab this one!