How to Plan The Giver Novel Study

Some books get a laugh. Others make students shed a tear. But The Giver will leave your students hooked and guessing until the very last second. My students used to get genuinely upset when we were done reading for the day because they wanted to know what was coming next. If you’re looking for a quick novel that will get your students thinking, you’ve found it. I’m giving you a peek into my The Giver novel study, so you can see exactly how I turn this book into meaningful classroom discussions.

About The Giver

The Giver is set in a utopian society where there is no pain, conflict, or suffering. Jonas is selected as the Receiver of Memory. That means he’ll be the only person with full knowledge of the past and the truth about how his current society came to be. After receiving the memories and seeing the world in a new way, Jonas starts to question everything he’s been taught.

The Giver has become a staple in middle school classrooms, and I’m all for it. It’s a great introduction to dystopian fiction (I used it in my dystopian unit) and leads to some really great conversations about free will and individuality (things that middle schoolers are very passionate about 😆). The novel is pretty PG, with very mild romantic themes and violence. It’s heavy on the positive messages and role models.

Planning The Giver Novel Study

Before you start mapping out your lessons, you’ll want to decide how you’ll be reading the book and how you’ll guide conversations around the book. For my students, book clubs were always the best option for reading. Yes, it does require a bit more trust, but I noticed my students were actually more engaged because of the accountability measures in place.

I also like to use Socratic Seminars for discussion. I’ll talk about this a bit more, but Socratic Seminars put students in control of the conversation. Again, it might seem counterintuitive if regular class discussions have been a struggle, but seminars add more student accountability and buy-in. AKA students actually start talking, discussing, and analyzing.

Once you’ve ironed out those details, you can map out your unit. Here’s my outline for my The Giver novel study –

• Pre-Lesson: Socratic Seminar Norms
• Lesson One: Dystopian Genre
• Lesson Two: Character Traits
• Lesson Three: Point of View
• Lesson Four: Theme
• Lesson Five: Theme and Plot
• Lesson Six: Character Traits
• Lesson Seven: Theme and Plot
• Lesson Eight: Author’s Purpose
• Lesson Nine: Point of View
• Lesson Ten: Theme
• Bonus Lesson One: The Giver Movie
• Bonus Lesson Two: Comparing Texts
• Bonus Lesson Three: Utopia or Dystopia?
• Bonus Lesson Four: Objective Summaries

My ready-to-go The Giver novel unit includes daily lesson plans and covers all of the essential fiction standards. I’ve done the tedious work of mapping it all out for you! It also includes teaching slides, interpretive and guiding questions for each lesson, interactive notebook pages, rubrics, reading response examples, and more.

Dystopian or Fiction Unit?

One question I get asked a lot is whether you need to teach The Giver in a dystopian unit or can include it in a regular fiction unit. First, it might be helpful to see how I rotated through my units. I have a free pacing guide you can download. In the pacing guide, you can see that I did make time for both fiction and dystopian.

But why? While you don’t need a separate dystopian unit, I found it to be really helpful. Dystopian fiction does come with its own set of elements and common themes. For example, you’ll talk about utopias, totalitarianism, and surveillance. 

Yes, you can introduce these things within your fiction unit, but I like to go deep into these themes and concepts because there’s a lot of conversation to be had! And students get really into it.

Socratic Seminars and The Giver

So, exactly how do you get students to engage in conversations about utopias, surveillance, and fears of the outside world (all themes that show up in The Giver!). Well, you do it with Socratic Seminars.

When I talk about Socratic Seminars, the biggest push back I get is, “My students can’t do that.” And I get it. You’ve tried to have discussions with your students about a novel, and it doesn’t go super well. One student carries the conversation. You realize half the students slept through the reading. And you end up holding a discussion with yourself.

The idea of doing something even “harder” like Socratic Seminar seems impossible. But I want to show you how I embed seminars into The Giver novel study to make it simple for students to show up and be ready to talk.

Let’s look at lesson two from The Giver unit, for example. This lesson focuses on character traits. The lesson starts with a guiding question: how does Jonas appear to be different from some of the other twelve-year-olds? As students read, they’ll keep this question in mind.

Once the reading is over, students immediately move into a quick write where they answer the guiding question. This doesn’t need to be perfect. They’re just jotting down their thoughts and any evidence they have from the text to back it up.

Then, you move into Socratic Seminar where you ask the interpretive question: how does Jonas’s actions reveal his character? What could this be foreshadowing about Jonas and some decisions he’s made or will make? Students have already begun brainstorming this question when they did a quick write earlier. So they aren’t showing up with blank minds or empty-handed. This makes it a lot easier for them to jump into the conversation. 

I repeat this process each day throughout the unit. That’s the other key element. Because students get a chance to practice Socratic Seminar multiple times, it becomes easier, and they become more confident!
If you love the idea of bringing Socratic Seminar and in-depth conversations to your classroom, grab The Giver novel study! The entire unit is laid out for you, along with the materials you’ll need, so you can jump right in with confidence.