I’m not sure that parallel novels can even work. I have never been able to get a parallel novel past the first few chapters – it always encounters the same limitations as the Realm did – it sets up well mechanically but when action is needed it isn’t there. However, if parallel novels are difficult, just personalizing and comparing a kid in the class to something going on in the novel is a definite possibility. Robert, in this repost from 2008 shows how we can add some P to R and D to add interest to our work with novels:
…after a bit over two weeks of class, my first-year students began reading “Arme Anne” (“Pauvre Anne”, “Pobre Ana”) today. We managed to “cover” an entire paragraph but had a wonderful time doing it. As I greeted students at the door, as is my wont, one of my guys barely mumbled “Guten Morgen”. I could tell he was tired. As we started to read, I began comparing “Wolfgang” with Anne. Anne has lots of problems, but Wolfgang has only one problem: he’s tired. Anne has problems with her family; Wolfgang doesn’t have problems with his family, he has the problem of being tired. At this point I began to see Wolfgang start to sit up straighter. Then this little smile/smirk came over his face. It appeared off and on over the course of the period. Since Wolfgang is a guy, tall, has short hair, we could contrast that with Anne’s girl, not tall, long hair. They both have blue eyes. The whole class was also interested, because we were talking about one of them, not just some character in a cheesy novel. (Sorry, Blaine, said from the student perspective.) At the end of class, as everyone was leaving, I apologized to Wolfgang for picking on him. He just grinned. If he’s tired tomorrow, I may just have to dub him “Wolfgang der Immer Muede” (Wolfgang the Always Tired). This is the earliest I have ever started a novel, but I don’t think I’ll tell my students they don’t know enough to read it yet. Somehow they haven’t figured out what they “can’t” do in German, and I’m not about to tell them.
I would add one thing to this. A lot of people new to PQA get kind of intimidated by asking kids questions and don’t use the full power of their office to, as it were, force the PQA. They give up in the face of reticent, lukewarm (read “boring”) responses from shy (read “boring”) kids. What does that mean? It means to TELL the kid, when reading Houdini, that, whereas Brandon has a blue T-Bird, Jason in your class has a red T-Corvette. Just tell the class that. Don’t even ask Jason, bc he doesn’t like to play. I love to address such PQA to the most withdrawn (read “boring”) kids in the class (with reservation for certain kids, of course – there are those who can’t take any attention). It is all done jokingly, in a way that shows how cool you think it is that this kid has a red Corvette. Don’t ever let the facts get in the way of a good story. Most teenage boys, when told in front of their peers that they have a red Corvette, react in some way. If they don’t play the game, at least they smile a bit, sometimes against their will. The class gets into it and the kid is often actually forced to react. One caution when doing this: stay with the book. Don’t get into what year the red Corvette is unless we know what year Brandon’s blue Corvette is, because these kinds of little parallel spinouts must stay to known vocabulary that is found in text, obviously.