Teaching Among the Hidden in Middle School

Some books will quiet your class because they’re bored out of their minds. And others will have your students at a loss for words because they are absorbed in the story. Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix is the latter because from the very first page, students are hooked on the story (ask me how I know). You’ll have deep conversations around character choices, connections to the world, but also author’s choice. If you’re looking for a dystopian novel that will pull even your most reluctant readers into real conversation, this book is for you. Let me take you inside my Among the Hidden novel study to show you how I bring this book to my middle school classroom.

About Among the Hidden

Among the Hidden is the first book in Haddix’s Shadow Children series, and it drops readers straight into a world where Popular Police enforce a two-child limit on every family. Luke grows up as a shadow child and also the third child born into his family. They do not allow him outside of his house. He can’t go to school. He must remain hidden. One day, while hiding in his attic, he sees another face staring back at him in another house. He suspects that home also has a shadow child, and he ventures out to see. This begins Luke and Jen’s friendship and the beginning of the question they both must answer: how much are you willing to risk for the right to exist?

This novel works best for grades 6-8. You can use it in a fiction unit, but a dystopian unit is where it works best. This story does have some scenes of violence, so it’s something to consider before reading. But it is written specifically for middle-grades students, so the violence is minimal.

Mapping Out the Unit

Before you jump into daily lessons, I like to nail down the logistics. How long do you have to teach the unit? How will students get the reading done? This will help you lay out your standards and lessons.

For Among the Hidden, I plan for about three weeks of lessons. Like I mentioned, I include this within my dystopian unit, so while we are digging into the novel, we’re also talking about dystopian elements, world-building, propaganda, symbolism, and more. This adds a lot more depth to the unit and gives you space to cover standards that might not normally get to spend a lot of time on.

How you read this with students depends on your class and how much time you have. I like to read this in book clubs (check out my book club workshop on how to implement this in your classroom), but you can also assign the chapters for independent reading, literature circles, or whole class reading. 

Building Out Your Lessons

Now it’s time to lay out your Among the Hidden lessons. I’ve done the work for you in the Among the Hidden novel study, and I want to give you a breakdown of what you’ll find inside this unit. This unit includes 12 lessons, plus a pre-lesson and some bonus lessons. This unit is not built around worksheets, one-off activities, and busy work. Students will engage in Socratic Seminar, having conversations and digging deep into each standard and lesson.

• Pre-Lesson: Socratic Seminar Norms
• Lesson One: Dystopian Elements
• Lesson Two: World-Building
• Lesson Three: Imagery
• Lesson Four: Mood and Tone
• Lesson Five: Symbolism
• Lesson Six: Literary Conflict
• Lesson Seven: Point of View
• Lesson Eight: Antihero
• Lesson Nine: Foreshadowing, suspense, and cliffhangers
• Lesson Ten: Propaganda
• Lesson Eleven: Theme
• Lesson Twelve: Dystopian Archetypes
• Bonus Lesson One: Point of View Influence
• Bonus Lesson Two: Comparing Texts
• Bonus Lesson Three: Objective Summaries

The Among the Hidden novel study hits every major fiction standard, while keeping the book fun and appealing for students. They’ll talk about the unsettling world the characters live in. The morally complicated actions the characters take. And the plot that keeps getting more and more tense.

The novel student also includes daily lesson plans, teaching slides, guiding and interpretive questions, written response rubrics, student reference pages, and more. So you don’t have to stress about how you’ll fit everything in or the best way to cover the material.

How Socratic Seminar Takes Students Deeper

Socratic Seminar is the backbone of the Among the Hidden novel study. If you’ve never done Seminars before, this might feel intimidating, but the unit includes all the resources you need to set yourself up for success and guide students through the conversations.

Let me give you a glimpse of how Socratic Seminars look using lesson four as an example. Lesson four is about mood and tone. You’ll start the lesson by presenting the guiding question to students: What is the tone and mood of the novel? And how does it affect the novel?

Then, you’ll move into reading chapters 8-10. Again, you can read as a class, have students read independently, or in book clubs. As they read, you’ll cover key vocabulary and stop to ask comprehension questions (which are included in the lesson plan). 

Now, it’s time to prepare for seminar. When students are done reading, give students five minutes to write about the guiding question. Then, share the interpretive question with them: How do authors create mood and tone in their novels? How does authors’ craft contribute to the mood and tone? This will be the question they focus on in the seminar.

During the seminar, students will take turns sharing their thoughts on the interpretive question. They can use what they wrote in their quick write to guide them. This is where the conversation goes deeper, exploring author’s craft, mood and tone, and author’s purpose.

With the Among the Hidden novel study, students will read, write, and discuss the novel within a single class period. This process repeats each class period with new chapters, new questions, and new topics to focus on. If you want a novel study that helps students go deep into literary analysis, rather than surface-level worksheets, then make sure you grab the Among the Hidden unit.