We’ve just spent four classes working on writing the paragraphs for their student blogs. We worked back in the classroom today, with the understanding that students who are slightly behind in writing their paragraphs will work on them outside of class time to catch up.
To end this unit, The Unknown, we will have a unit exam next week. Students were given this class to organize their binders, skim over the literature, pick out the major aspects of the course they should focus on, and create a “cheat sheet” on the recipee card given to them today. They can bring it into the class with them to write the exam.
Some major parts to focus on will be found in that original handout from the beginning of the year, the Skills Review Sheet.
Today was the second day of watching the movie of the novel. The court scenes are especially powerful. (For some students, watching someone’s interpretation of the novel’s events helps the whole thing come together, even though, as some were pointing out, several major aspects of the novel were not included in the movie. Amy questioned this, but for a larger audience the movie focused solely on the racial inequality, rather than themes like “tradition” or “maturing”.
This movie is one of the most beloved and famous in the states. It won several Acadamy Awards when it was released and, as I’ve discussed with the kids, I can’t see it ever being done as a remake since it holds so much heart in the original version. We will spend two classes watching it, from where we left off from viewing the beginning before.
This was period four of working on the blog paragraphs. Students started the class by indicating to me which number paragraph they were on and I explained I was going to check with them at the end of the class. Most of them did a fairly good job of showing progress during the class.
For those needing more writing / typing time, they will have to continue outside of class time, whether at home or at school during noons, etc. We’ll move on for a short while to give them that catch – up time and then work for another period where they copy and paste their paragraphs into their newly created blogs and add the details, like links, photos, and videos.