Most of the students were away for their Career and Work Experience, but they were told on Friday they had to have Chapter nine completed, read and questions answered, for Tuesday. Those students who were here read this (listened to the audio) together and did their questions.
We’ll talk, when the others return, about the important aspects of Chapter nine.
We discussed, again, the purpose of their handout for the Dynamic Characters of the novel. I had students re-explain what they were to look for and I was pleased how well they could recite examples or evidence of a character being a dynamic one. The point, then, was to remind them to use the handout as we read.
We continued reading through Chapter 6 and 7. We had just barely finished when the bell went, but they had enough time to write out their chapter summary sentences so they won’t have to struggle to remember for tomorrow.
We continued reading through the novel together, with me reading aloud. Some students, I can see, read at a faster pace on their own and then start their questions before the rest are finished listening. This is fine. It’s important, though, that those listening do follow along in the book because the combination of listening and reading will help improve both of those skills for them.
Once we had finished reading the chapter and discussing the main parts, they wrote down a chapter summary sentence on their question sheets and they were asked to answer their questions individually.
Students came to class to be reminded that their illustration project was due today, even though I could see several of them had left their drawings on the shelf in the classroom.
We answered the questions for Chapter 2 together. We finished reading Chapter three (they listened to most of it on Friday) and then students were asked to individually answer those chapter questions as well.
They wasted a lot of time. I said I wanted them to read Chapter 4 on their own and be ready to do the questions tomorrow. Some of them said they would read it during their DEAR time.
We started the class by answering the questions for Chapter one of the novel. Then I offered the students a choice: continue working on their illustrations while I read, or read the second Chapter together. (Some people can focus on two tasks at the same time, while others cannot. They seemed pretty confident they could focus on both.)
I started reading the novel, but then realized I could just play the narrated version I have on tape. They worked, I worked, and we all listened. It was a good class!
Students started finding their 10 phrases yesterday that will be the basis of their illustration of either Boo Radley or his home. Today they had the class to work on their projects.
Students were given their copy of the novel. Their names are written in and I have marked down the number of the book they were assigned. This way, when they hand in a novel at the end of the study they’ll know they’re handing in their own, not someone elses.
We started right into the reading. It is easy to become engaged with the characters of the novel quickly because they’re written so carefully.
Students were also given their first assignment with the novel – to create a representation illustration of either Boo Radley’s house or his person. I showed them examples from former students who did the same assignment. They watched for the references as we read and made note of them.
Today is the beginning of a month-long (approx) study of the wonderful novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Students studied a unit on Equality with me last semester in Gr 10. We reviewed some of those topics and the setting for their last novel study, Of Mice and Men. They all seemed to really enjoy that novel and I tried to make it clear that when we are done with this next novel they’ll have enjoyed it equally if not more!
To help set the environment of the novel, we looked through a PowerPoint show that highlighted some important factors to understand in the novel, such as the economic situation of the time, the segregation of Blacks from Whites, and the role of women in society.
We also had a discussion of the author, how she published the novel with a slightly ambiguous name so the book wouldn’t be rejected since it was written by a woman. Around the time the book was written and published, a lot of issues were coming to a head in American society after several major court cases brought awareness to the fact that Black people were not getting fair trials. One particular such case was the Scarborough Case where a few white women accused several black men of raping them. Through the different levels of appeal, though, it became more and more clear that the women had concocted the charges.
Tomorrow, we’ll begin reading through the novel together. We’ll read it aloud in class, answer the chapter questions as we go, and look for evidence of growth in two of the characters. This will make their major project of a literary essay much easier to plan for.
We started the class today with looking at a list of archetypes often found in children’s stories. These are models or prototypes of characters that are universally recognized. Just by being that archetype in a story, the reader / viewer already has an expectation of what their behaviour and personality may be like. For example, when a pirate is created in a story, the reader will understand what to expect from that character for the most part. The author will create interesting aspects of the character’s personality of role in the story, but for the most part every pirate acts quite the same. Another example may be the Nurturing Mother archetype – again her role in the story will be anticipated and understood for the most part.
The handout students were given had a list of different types of archetypes, included ones demonstrated by the male and female Gods of Greek mythology as well as male and female archetypes in basic literature.
We also discussed again the difference between a traditional fairy tale and a modern twist on the storyline.
To help students recognize both these aspects of children’s literature, the archetypes and modern changes to the story, we watched the first forty or so minutes of Shrek 3. They had a work sheet and were to fill in examples of male and female archetypes (like the male hero / rescuer, the faithful companion; the female fairy godmother, the heroine) and aspects of the traditional nature of the story (everyone lives in a magical kingdom, the princess’s parents are royalty) and the more modern twists on things (the hero is ugly and clumsy, the dragon is a girl and very affectionate) etc. We’ll discuss what they wrote down on Monday.
Students were given this entire class to create their third blog entry for the course. Any time needed after that they could use to complete the other two blog entries (by adding a picture, link to an article of a related topic, and link to a comment on a peer’s blog) or finish their “Should’ve Been…” poems that are due tomorrow.
Again, they were reminded to focus on their use of computer time. Some were very efficient in how they used their time while others seemed to accomplish very little during this time.
s studied a unit on Equality with me last semester in Gr 10. We reviewed some of those topics and the setting for their last novel study,