Semi-Autonomous Novel Study

I'm having the most entertaining time with my Year 12 class at the moment. Well, more accurately, I'm having an entertaining time watching my Year 12 class.
In theory, students have finished reading John Green's Paper Towns (theory because they had very little class time assigned to it reading it and were expected to complete it at home). Instead of guiding them through the novel, as I would usually, I have set the class up with a reading journal and task, and am pretty much sitting back and letting them discover the deeper aspects of the novel on their own.
Their end product is to be a study guide which must be made accessible for all other students in the class. I have left it up to them how they do it. We have groups are using Tumblr, Google sites and docs and a wiki. Their reading journal focuses them on the development of character, themes, symbols and relationships in each chapter, on the big questions about identity and interconnectedness, and how the main two characters are constructed. Students are expected to develop each others' ideas (building knowledge) rather than dividing up the workload. They are being asked to analyse these aspects of the text, in what is turning out to be a very accessible way.
As exciting as these formats are, the attitude of the class has been the absolute highlight. Now that the basic debates about formats have been addressed, the discussions are more focused on the novel itself. I have enjoyed listening to their opinions and developing insights into how the novel has been constructed. Students who have not read all of the novel are being held accountable by their group members (including the horror when one group realised that one of their number skipped the important prologue).
One group is also keen to send John Green a question through Twitter in order to help them address author purpose. They are excited that maybe, just maybe, he might respond. Even if he didn't, they have been completely engaged with the process.
The measure of success will be how well they are able to analyse the novel in their essays, which are preparation for the end of year examination.
We're off to a great start, though, and I am looking forward to reading their analyses.

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