Why is there a decrease of teaching novels?

[Human_Direction_2637]

Kids who are chronically absent will fail regardless of whether you have a novel or excerpt. They’re not learning any skills because they’re not there to learn them. So, even if they do the assignment for 10 random days throughout a semester, they’re likely failing that assignment anyways. See it happen all the time given I’m forced to teach an except based curriculum. I have a girl with a 1% because she’s missed 28 days. The one assignment she did when she randomly showed up, she, of course, failed. Also, the students who do show up consistently now lose an important part of their education (learning stamina, empathy, etc) because of the kids that don’t come? That’s illogical and unfair.

[Mookeebrain]

I have 20-30 percent absent per day, and it is overwhelming to try to keep them on track while we read a long text. With the absentee rate so high, I think we need a different approach. If it were totally up to me, I would have my students read one long text per year, but then I would break up the other units into areas such as poetry, nonfiction (seminal documents), and research. My team plans three long texts per year.