If you’re teaching Long Way Down (and ready for some Long Way Down lesson plan ideas!), let me just start by saying “YAY!”
It’s a reader-maker, an incredible book you can teach in a short time with a high impact.
Today, I’m going to be sharing some of my favorite ideas and resources for you to pair with this book. We’ll talk about discussion formats, project ideas, Jason Reynolds-themed multimedia waiting around the web, and a creative writing pairing that I think you’re going to love too.
Let’s dive into these Long Way Down lessons.
Quick Note on Language
Heads up, as I’m sure you’re aware, this book does have some language. You may need to give a heads up to parents, depending on your school community. But you can, at the same time, mention the Walter Award, Coretta Scott King Award, Printz Award, Newberry Honor Book Award, etc. Maybe throw in the fact that the Library of Congress named him the national ambassador for Young People’s Literature.
Introductory Long Way Down Lesson Ideas
Consider introducing Jason Reynolds to your class with two stellar pieces of multimedia. First, this video documentary from Kristina Melom – Dear, Dreamer. I just can’t understand how this can only have 38K views, but hopefully soon we can get it up to 100K!
After watching this film, you might invite partners to answer a few opening questions, like What do they like about Jason Reynolds? What surprised them? What stood out to them? What expectations do they now have for a book written by Reynolds?
Next, let them hear Reynolds read the first few pages of Long Way Down, paired with the graphic novel illustrations in this short video.
At this point, you might discuss a few things, like what they think of the verse form (have they read a novel-in-verse before?), what they think of Will, the narrator, how they feel about the illustration style, and what questions they have about the book now that they know how it begins.
Long Way Down Lesson Idea: Hexagonal Thinking Discussion
There is, of course, SO much to discuss in Long Way Down once students have gotten into the reading!
The Rules, the smoke, the middle drawer, the anagrams, feeling haunted, feeling trapped, breaking cycles, using art to create change in the world, and more.
I want to suggest two types of discussion format to help you get started.
First, one of my favorites – a hexagonal thinking discussion.
If you’ve been around here for long, you’re not new to hexagonal thinking, a discussion method where you put key concepts and ideas from the book and outside connections (think current events, other books, other disciplines, historical events) onto hexagons, then let students arrange them to showcase and explain the most important connections.
Let’s talk a little bit about terms. I’d definitely include all the characters, but I’d also include some descriptors like hopeless, haunted, helpless, and hopeful. Then there would be symbols like the smoke, the L button, the elevator, and the middle drawer, maybe some key quotations and anagrams, and more.
You can print your hexagons and give them to students to cut out and connect (no need to cramp your hand cutting out a half dozen group sets of 50 hexagons).
Next, you can give students time to consider the connections.
Would they connect the smoke to Will? To Shawn? To the elevator? To the word “hopeful”? To all of the above?
Would they connect the middle drawer to Shawn and Frick? To Buck? To Buck, Shawn, Frick, and Will? Why?
All of these little decisions come with conversations for the group. And it’s those conversations that make this form of discussion so engaging.
After your students have mostly completed their webs of connection, give them post-its and have them explain their key connections at a few points. Then you might have them take a picture to share to a collaborative slideshow, or invite them to tape their work up to the wall to keep up as you move forward through the unit. You can further extend the work with a gallery walk, presentations back to the class, and/or individual writing.
You can find my version of this activity on TPT here, if you’d like the done-for-you option.
Long Way Down Lesson Idea: A Colorful Silent Discussion
Silent discussion might sound like an oxymoron, but it’s actually a really productive way to hear from all of your students.
For this Long Way Down lesson plan, students will write all of their comments on post-its, which they’ll tack up around the silhouettes of the key characters from the novel. (I made my silhouette pages on Canva, but you could also use giant butcher paper and a Sharpie, or dry erase marker on your board).
Have students start by creating a post-it for each character that you put up. They might write….
- a key quotation about that character
- a question you have about that character
- descriptive words or phrases to help showcase that character
- your impression of the influence that character exerts over Will on the ride
- how that character connects to (and/or cracks?) “The Rules”
Once they go up to tack these post-its to the wall, then it’s time for stage two.
Now every student can take a post-it pad and a pen and start reading and responding, creating a rippling thread of post-its across the wall as they respond to questions, ask more questions, comment on each other’s ideas, add related quotations, etc. They can continue reading and responding until you either move the conversation to an oral discussion, finish the class, or perhaps segue into some related writing.
If you’d like to build in an element of accountability or a process grade, you can ask students to sign their post-its before posting them.
You can find my version of this activity here.
Flash Verse Creative Writing Project for Long Way Down
In an interview with the Kennedy Center, Jason Reynolds talked about using the page as a canvas – breaking up his words and lines for this novel-in-verse to create meaning with their spacing and structure. For this creative writing project, students will experiment with the same strategy.
In the first step, students think about what can happen in 67 seconds – the time span of Will’s elevator ride.
Have students brainstorm a character of their own who is experiencing a pressured situation, considering what other characters can be part of this moment and how they might use some kind of symbolic element – like the smoke – in their story.
Next, invite students to write based on what they’ve brainstormed, filling a page or two with a prose story. Maybe in two short writing sprints.
Now comes the fun part. Have them go through their prose and star the three most important moments. The moments that could tell the story all by themselves.
Invite them to underline the most interesting words and phrases in those moments, then rearrange them (and add to them) to create three separate poems.
Now, they’ve got a series of three poems that tell the story of their 67 seconds.
And it’s time to add that element of the page as “a canvas,” that Reynolds uses in Long Way Down.
Here are a few helpful videos students could watch to expand their thinking on how a short piece of writing could be showcased as a canvas.
In this video, Jason Reynolds reads aloud from his beautifully illustrated children’s book, There was a Party for Langston:
In this book trailer for Reynolds’ poetic collaboration with artist Jason Griffin, students can see the way the lines of Reynolds’ poem play off the images by Griffin.
As he explores the way Danica Novgorodoff represents his work with her watercolor illustrations in this short interview, Reynolds talks about how art can reinforce the ideas behind the words.
Whether they work just with how they break their lines (as in Long Way Down) or also add color or other forms of illustration to their lines (as in Ain’t Burned all the Bright, There was a Party for Langston, or the graphic novel version of Long Way Down), it’s now time for students to create a three paneled canvas version of their story.
I suppose it goes without saying that a gallery walk and final display are great ways to finish up this Long Way Down lesson!
You can find my version of this Flash Verse project here.
Long Way Down Character Analysis: The Open Mind Project
The Open Mind project concept is essentially a one-pager with a character analysis lens. Maybe you’ve heard me talk about these before – it’s an old favorite idea of mine.
The silhouette of the character’s head helps visually reinforce the idea of a full focus on what’s happening with the character – their internal and external influences, key moments in their life, their relationships, key text that describes them, etc.
I find Will especially fascinating for an open mind, because what he brings into the elevator – the mindset, understanding of the world, and rules for survival, is so different from what he brings out. So there’s room for students to explore his identity coming into the elevator on the inside of the silhouette, and it’s all pretty clear at first. But there’s also the influence that is about to come from the outside – which we’ll get to in a second.
Here are the instructions I’d give students on how to fill Will’s open mind:
- 2-3 adjectives you feel define him
- 2-3 key quotations describing him and/or his situation
- The Rules he knows
- Key connections and relationships to other characters
- Motivations
- Interests, passions, dreams (are there any he shares with us? Is there room for HIM in this story?)
Then comes his elevator ride, and these 6 ghosts that exert such a strong influence over him. And their stories are so intertwined, and mixed up in the symbolic smoke that ramps up as he rides. So around Will’s head, I wanted to create room for these other six characters and the way they influence him, in particular how the actions they take, the questions they ask, and the stories they share change his understanding of the rules he thought he knew.
So now it’s time for instructions on how to fill the six spaces swirling around Will:
- Will’s relationship to this character
- how this character relates to the rules, and/or helps crack Will’s belief in the rules
- key quotation(s)
For the elements of Will’s identity AND the elements of influence coming from the ghosts, it’s important to guide students a little bit on how to include visuals that will make an impact, and aren’t there just to be there.
Consider visual directions like this:
- How can you use colors, shapes, or types of text to help highlight this character and their influence?
- Can you make use of imagery and visual symbolism to help showcase key elements?
- How might you play with the sizes and locations of various elements to highlight their importance or show their relative lack of importance?
You can find my version of the Long Way Down Open Mind project here.
Ready?
So now you’re ready with some great multimedia (thanks for being so available to teachers and students, Jason Reynolds!), discussion activities, and creative project options.
I hope you’re going to LOVE your Long Way Down unit.
And if you’d like to pin these ideas to come back to later, here are some reminder options for you!
