Student teacher here. This is what I do:
Go to a teacher supply store and buy one of the lesson plan books that everyone in the world except for Methods teachers uses. The way these work is that every two page spread = one week. Mon-Fri each get their own row, and the columns are for what areas you will be covering (I do Grammar - Reading - Writing - Project - Homework. For a unit that is real lit heavy, Vocab. can be its own topic as well). Remember, even if your theme is literature, you should integrating grammar. Anyway, the lesson plan books let you look at each week as a whole, and it is much easier to fit things together. Work in pencil–you will be erasing things nad moving them around a great deal.
First, obviously, chose the book. I agree that The Giver is way to easy. Consider The Odyssey. It’s loads of fun, lots of blood and gore, and Odysseus is a really neat charecter. But it really dosen’t matter. The important thing is to pick your material.
Next, sit down with the lesson plan book and plot out when and where you want the kids to read. All at home? Are you going to give them time to read in class? Are you going to read any of it out loud? Be specific about page numbers (or chapter numbers, which are better) and such and write them in under “reading” or “homework”, whichever is appropriate. If you are doing a big novel, this will take up three weeks. If you are doing a smaller novel, you may want to supplement at-home novel reading with in-class short stories, poems, songs, something. For a complex novel, I would not schedule “go over last night reading” every day, as they will soon depend on you to tell them about what they didn’t read, but I would schedule daily Q&A time. Also, have a day early on where you discuss reading stratigies–for example, if you are going to do Q&A sessions, have them put a post-it-note over sections that they have questions about, and not get hung up on them. Specific sratigies will vary by book.
Then, think about vocabulary. Is thre enough problematic vocabulary in this book that they need advance explainations of it? If so, get together a list, work time in on your “weekly” plan to go over vocabulary. Assign the ole relaible “use each word in a sentence” homework, or comeup with something more interesting–and tell me about it!
Next, decide on how you are going to do day-to-evaluations of the reading. Daily quizes? Tests on Fridays? Objective tests? Essay tests? Are you going to test the vocabulary explicitly or just work it in? Write in the evaluations of whatever form where ever you think they should fall.
Next, decide on a grammar concept you can push–I would do a different one each week. Look at the reading you have scheduled for that week and find ways you can draw attention to that grammar concept through that reading.
Then, start thinking about whatever writing projects you are going to assign. This is the “puzzle” phase–how can you work things in to keep the amount of daily work consistiant? Look at how much they are reading each night, when they have tests to study for, when there is vocabulary homework. Come up with at least one writing project a week. It should be connected to the novel, but students should also be responsible for whatever gramar concepts you have covered up to date.
Last, start thinking about a single big project to pull this all together. I suck at this, but there should be something after a three week unit. Once you have the final project in mind, work backwards through the three weeks, deciding what the steps htey need to complete are, and by which date each needs to be completed.
Once you have these three weeks worked out on the week-at-a-time planner, it is quick to put them into the one-day-at-a-time format method teachers and principals like.
Hope that helps.
