Ideas

 Multiple choice can remain the assessment format without remaining the teaching format.

With 350-ish students and online teaching, you reasonably need a lot of automatically gradable responses. That does not mean every lesson has to become:

read → teacher explanation → multiple-choice question → repeat.

You can change what students do before they answer the multiple-choice question.

For example, I would rotate among five formats.

1. Detective/Case File Lessons

Instead of teaching the skill first, give students three or four clues from the text and make them solve something.

For theme:

CASE: What is Tolkien suggesting about courage?

Students examine three pieces of evidence. Then the final question is still multiple choice:

Which theme is best supported by the evidence?

Now the MC question is the verdict rather than the entire learning experience.

2. Which Student Is Right?

Create three fictional students who interpret something differently.

Ava says Bilbo is acting from courage.
Marcus says Bilbo is acting from fear.
Jayden says Bilbo is acting from loyalty.

Students examine the passage and decide who has the strongest interpretation.

Then:

Which student has the best-supported interpretation?

A. Ava
B. Marcus
C. Jayden
D. None of them

This gives students argument evaluation without creating 350 written responses for you to grade.

3. Error Analysis

Show them a deliberately weak answer.

“The theme is friendship because they are friends.”

Then ask students what is wrong with it.

Or give four pieces of textual evidence and ask:

Which evidence would NOT support this answer?

Kids are often much more interested in finding somebody else's mistake than in being told the rule first.

4. Ranking Before Choosing

Give four possible answers and ask students mentally—or through a poll—to rank them strongest to weakest.

Then reveal or discuss why.

Your final Canvas question can still be normal multiple choice, but now they have practiced evaluating degrees of quality rather than merely hunting for “the right answer.”

5. Mini-Mystery → Reveal → MC

Start with something strange:

“Bilbo just did something the Bilbo from Chapter 1 would never have done. What changed?”

Show two or three excerpts.

Let students make a prediction.

Teach the relevant skill.

Then use the multiple-choice question at the end to check whether they can apply it.

That reverses the normal sequence. Instead of:

I teach → you answer

it becomes:

You notice → you wonder → we investigate → you decide.

That alone could make your lessons feel substantially different without increasing your grading load.

An Online Format That Might Particularly Suit You

I would experiment with a recurring structure called something like:

THE HOBBIT CASE OF THE DAY

Every class begins with one problem.

Examples:

The Case of the Changing Bilbo
The Case of the Suspicious Narrator
The Case of the Missing Theme
The Case of the Terrible Evidence
The Case of the Two Correct Answers
The Case of the Word Nobody Knows

Then students spend the lesson collecting clues.

Your existing standards still fit.

Your existing multiple-choice questions still fit.

Your existing Hobbit content still fits.

But psychologically, the lesson has a purpose beyond:

Today we are learning Standard 8.RC.2.

That may solve some of the boredom for you without requiring you to reinvent the curriculum.

Hispanic Heritage Month

I like the instinct behind:

“What about their Hispanic heritage is most important to them?”

But I would adjust the prompt.

Some students may identify as Hispanic or Latino but not feel knowledgeable about family heritage. Some may have mixed backgrounds. Some may not want to publicly represent a culture. And students who are not Hispanic need a meaningful route into the activity too.

I would make participation broader and personal disclosure optional:

If Hispanic or Latino heritage is part of your identity, you may share a tradition, person, place, food, music, story, language, value, or experience that matters to you. If it is not part of your identity—or you prefer not to share personally—choose something from a Hispanic or Latino culture that you would like to learn more about.

Then nobody is appointed spokesperson for an ethnicity.

And this could connect beautifully to ELA.

Students could identify something important, find a short text connected to it, and then apply whichever reading standard you are teaching.

You do not need “Hispanic Heritage Month lessons” separate from ELA.

You can teach ELA through Hispanic and Latino voices and texts.

That is much more integrated.