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School of Education
Center for Gifted Education

Navigators

Navigators: Novel Studies

A Navigator is a collection of questions and activities intended to support group or independent study of a selected novel or picture book. The Navigator series was developed by the Center for Gifted Education at William & Mary as a language arts resource for teachers and students.

Novel studies should encourage advanced readers to develop their skills at analyzing and interpreting literature through structured questions and activities that highlight themes and concepts, literary elements, and real world connections contained within the books. In addition, novel studies are opportunities for students to develop their own vocabulary and writing skills by exploring and emulating the language and style used by authors.

Now available for purchase through Kendall Hunt under the Navigators Heritage Series tab. 

List of Navigator Units

Grades 1-3

  • Jumanji, Chris Van Allsburg
  • Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak

Grades 2-3

  • The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, Chris Van Allsburg
  • Memory String, Eve Bunting, 
  • My Daniel, Pam Conrad

Grades 3-4

  • Talk About a Family, Eloise Greenfield
  • Sarah, Plain and Tall, Patricia MacLachlan
  • Charlotte's Web, E. B. White

Grades 3-5

  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory [pdf] (abbreviated version), Roald Dahl
  • From the Fixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.I. Konis
  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J. K. Rowling
Grades 4-5
  • Riding Freedom, Pam Muñoz Ryan
  • Bud, Not Buddy, Christopher Paul Curtis
  • A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle
  • The Abracadabra Kid, Sid Fleischman
  • Stone Fox, John Reynolds Gardiner
  • Everything on a Waffle, Polly Horvath
  • Snow Treasure, Marie McSwigan
  • Shiloh, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
  • The Egypt Game, Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Grades 4-6
  • Sounder, William Armstrong
  • The Midwife's Apprentice, Karen Cushman
  • Yolanda's Genius, Carol Fenner
  • The Whipping Boy, Sid Fleischman
  • Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
  • Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
  • The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
  • Jacob, Have I Loved, Katherine Paterson
  • A Year Down Yonder, Richard Peck
  • Years of Miss Agnes, Kirkpatrick Hill
  • Yolanda's Genius, Carol Fenner

Grades 5-6

  • A Girl from Yamhill, Beverly Cleary
  • Sarah Bishop, Scott O'Dell

Grades 5-7

  • Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
  • Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
  • Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech
  • Little by Little, Jean Little

Grades 5-8

  • A Single Shard, Linda Sue Park 
  • Esperanza Rising, Pam Muñoz Ryan
  • Fever of 1793, Laurie Halse Anderson

Grades 6-7

  • The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper

Grades 6-8

  • My Brother Sam is Dead, James Lincoln Collier & Christopher Collier 
  • Summer of My German Soldier, Bette Greene
  • The Giver, Lois Lowry
  • Breath, Donna Jo Napoli
  • A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw, Isaac Bashevis Singer
  • The Pearl, John Steinbeck
  • The Invisible Thread, Yoshiko Uchida

Grades 7-10

  • The Day They Came to Arrest the Book, Nat Hentoff
  • Call of the Wild, Jack London

Grades 9-12

  • 1984, George Orwell
  • Henry IV, Part 1, William Shakespeare
  • Hamlet, William Shakespeare
  • Macbeth, William Shakespeare
  • Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare
  • Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare
  • Romeo & Juliet, William Shakespeare
  • Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare