June 9

ELA B30: June 9 Discussion of Blood Diamond and review of… the Russian Revolution??

  1. The class had about ten minutes left of their movie to finish from last week. It is interesting that they were so captivated by the movie that it didn’t seem at all like their last viewing of it was three days ago. Once the movie was finished, we discussed it as it related to the several themes we have studied in each sub-unit of this course. For each of the themes, I asked the class to give me examples of how it was represented in the movie. For one story to fit so perfectly into all of the categories, it is unfortunate they cannot refer to it on the final! The benefit, though, in having watched the video and discussed it is to have an object for discussion that so clearly links all these ideas together.
  2. From that discussion, it seemed to be the obvious next step to discuss the Russian Revolution. (Say what?!)  We have little time left but they are going to read / listen to a short novel yet this week. The story is written so cleverly that it is quite enjoyable to read. They have already studied two large pieces of writing intensely (Night and Hamlet) so now they can relax and “enjoy” a piece of literature for it’s listening pleasure but still be able to refer to it on their final.
  3. Before reading / listening to it though, in order for them to understand the story within the story, they had to have a quick lesson in history. They didn’t take their World History (20 course) so for nearly all of them the story of Karl Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and his assassination order by Stalin and all the rest of it were completely new. We created a character concept map, to show the links between characters, and then with each they wrote in brackets the novel character who represents the real historical figures. Click here for another summary.
  4. Tomorrow we’ll begin reading. You’ll enjoy this story, I promise!


Posted June 9, 2008 by Waldner in category ELA 30

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