About Us

Simply Novel's Mission

As an innovative leader in the field of educational publishing and media, Simply Novel is committed to providing practical ideas, relevant content, and quality resources to support and connect teachers and to inspire better teaching.  Simply Novel provides effective and innovative trainings, coaching, and resources to help teachers feel inspired and connected to each other and their students in order to generate, support, and retain high quality teachers in the classroom.

About Simply Novel

As a rookie teacher in 2004, Kristen Bowers faced mounting pressures to teach an overwhelming list of novels, plays, and poetry, an intimidating catalog of writing requirements, and a mounting number of necessary grammar and vocabulary skills to her 9th and 11th grade English students. The demands were clear; how to go about teaching it all was not. Like many teachers, Mrs. Bowers struggled to find appropriate materials to support her lessons and spent countless hours scraping together, modifying, and refining inadequate, inappropriate “professionally-made” materials to motivate and inspire her students, and at the same time, teach the required proficiencies to address the California English Language Arts Standards on which her students were assessed at the time. Frustrated, she finally decided that if the right materials were going to be available to her and other teachers, she was going to have to make them herself!

In 2005, Mrs. Bowers set to work to create one of the most comprehensive and innovative standards-aligned Literature Guide sets on the market. Joined by a middle school teacher with 21 years of experience, Secondary Solutions began, and eventually matured into a specialized team of intermediate and secondary teachers who developed a set of materials unsurpassed by all others. By 2010, demand for the same high-quality materials for the elementary classroom inspired the development of sister company, Elementary Solutions.

By 2015, both Secondary Solutions and Elementary Solutions had grown as separate entities, both successful in their own right. Originating out of the need for a streamlined operation and a unified solution for all English Language Arts teachers, new parent company Simply Novel was conceived, broadening the vision Mrs. Bowers had sought to produce ten years earlier.

Simply Novel—Novel Solutions for the Successful Teacher—strives to offer teaching materials that are practical, innovative, and of the highest quality. Our materials focus on time-tested, research-based best practices for teaching, while offering extensive and rigorous coverage of the Common Core State Standards to which they are fully aligned, and providing you with a comprehensive set of tools to teach an understanding and appreciation of all aspects of English Language Arts. Our products will allow you to focus on the most important aspects of teaching—the personal, one-on-one, hands-on instruction you enjoy most—the reason you became a teacher in the first place!

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