Nothing But The Truth: Intro Activities, Assessments, & Ch. Analysis (editable)

A Brief Breakdown of the Novel

Nothing But The Truth is a documentary novel about a high school student, Philip, and an incident that occurs in his English class taught by Miss Narwin, a veteran English teacher. What unfolds is a story about motives, perspectives, media bias, local politics, free speech, and, most significantly, how the truth can get lost in the shuffle. As someone who taught middle school government, modern world history, and English Language Arts, I think this novel is essential for teaching students about the impact of how we use our platforms and the importance of analyzing the sources we get information from. 

Although written in the 1990’s this novel has so many applications today. At this time in our country’s history, I can’t think of a better novel study. It’ll teach students to examine their own personal motives, to understand the balance between exercising our rights with purpose versus exercising our rights simply because they’re there, to evaluate what makes a source credible, and, most importantly, to learn the value of civil discourse.  

About This Resource

Novel Study Rhythms

Novel studies for me tend to last 6-8 weeks, and it’s easy to lose a little momentum somewhere in the middle! To combat this, I like to establish some rhythms and structures to keep us moving through the novel, to keep students aware of connections that will be important later in the novel, and to assess how they’re growing in the skills/standards we’re working on in that novel. This product focuses on the handouts and lessons I use to establish this structure. 

Learning objectives/Essential Questions

1. Why would Avi choose to make Nothing But The Truth a documentary novel? How does the structure of Nothing But The Truth as a documentary novel impact the plot of the story?
2. How do the characters’ motives impact how they communicate? What consequences occur as a result?
3. How does Avi reveal the varying perspectives of the characters to the reader? What are some strategies for determining a character’s perspective/opinion?

What’s Included

1. An introductory lesson + handout on how to read a documentary novel. This lesson focuses on examining the author's purpose and understanding the structure of the novel. It also ties in a discussion and writing prompt on dramatic irony. Answer key included.
2. NBTT trivia to help give students background knowledge on some things in the novel (super fun!). Answer key included.
3. Four quizzes, I break the novel into four sections, so there's one quiz per section. Five standards-aligned questions per quiz, quite rigorous and robust. Answer key included. NOTE, I intentionally keep them short because they are rather challenging.
4. Four handouts with warm-up questions for each section. Each handout has somewhere between 10 and 15 questions depending on the length of the chapters. These questions range from simple comprehension questions to questions that require students to provide evidence, consider two different perspectives, analyze character motives, and find the cause and effect relationships. Answer key included  
5. Student summary handout with slides to show students how to craft brief chapter summaries that capture the pertinent information.
6. Teacher guide with detailed instructions for using these resources. 

**When purchased, you will be able to access the handouts in editable formats**