kill_a_mockingbird-powerpoint.ppt 

1. Students were told they could collect their childhood map assignments that have been taken down from the poster board.
2. We continued and finished our discussion of the grammar sheet we looked at yesterday. We tried a fun activity when talking about the “precision of words”. The idea is that there are so many words available for us to use and that each one has a very specific meaning. Using a thesaurus can be handy but only if not used to excess and irresponsibly. I talked about a former student who tried to make her sentences sound more wordy and interesting by using a thesaurus but randomly choosing any of the words that matched the one she wanted to change. We did the same activity with a sentence as simple as “How many brownies should I make for next Tuesday afternoon?” By giving options to the words many, make, next, and afternoon, we came up with some pretty crazy sounding and confusing sentences. Worry more about making your point clear than how many words you use and the amount of sentences.
3. We discussed the idea of telling a mature story through the eyes and perspective of a young child. The idea behind this would allow people to once again look at a familiar topic through young, naive eyes and realize the bias and judgement we have acquired with age and experience. This novel we will be studying does this same thing with the narrator being a young girl. It is said this first person perspective is part of what makes this story so intense and memorable.
4. We watched a powerpoint presentation (see above) that looked at the background, setting, and themes of the novel. The major ideas to understand are that the novel is set deep in the American south where racial prejudice and segregation are very strong still, and that the Depression has hit hard for everyone. It helped to really establish a background to the story’s time in history.
5. Students were given a handout package that contains everything we will discuss about the novel. We read the author’s background and then got right to reading the first portion of the novel. I tried reading with a Southern accent to give a bit of realism to the way the young girl would sound. (It was a brief attempt at it, I promise!)
6. Students will have their unit test tomorrow and then we will continue on with the novel study Monday! I am looking forward to sharing this charming book with you all!!