Identifying Contrasts & Contradictions in The Giver (Chapter 1)

Before beginning The Giver, I explained to my students that we would be going through the first chapter slowly, as we often do not give enough thought to all the information being presented in this introductory piece. Since I have read the story, of course I know that there are certain things I want them to catch, so this was very much a baby-step assignment. 

I established the purpose of our reading of chapter 1: focus on identifying Contrasts & Contradictions, a skill we have been working on for weeks now. I liked them before, but I now believe I am head-over-heels in love with Contrasts & Contradictions. Adam Levine may be People's sexiest man alive, but he ain't got nothin' on 25 students asking some deep questions.

Before I present the list, let me preface by saying this: I helped point out some of the CCs, but any discussion afterward was left to my students. There was oohing, aaahing, and oh-my-goshing from them and a lot of shoulder shrugging and playing stupid from me. 

So here is what "we" uncovered in chapter 1:

• Jets flying overhead is not frightening to us, especially since we live in proximity to the DFW airport, but this is not the same for the people in the community. 
• We do not have speaker systems set up in our neighborhoods with unknown voices telling us what to do. We have a speaker system at school, but students often to not even pay attention when an administrator comes on because they deem it unimportant. In the community, these not only exist, but any directions are followed immediately. 
• Being released from class is a good thing, but being released in the community does not appear to be a good thing at all. The kids did discuss what the possibilities might be. They suggested everything from death to banishment to the desert.
• Jonas is concerned about word choice, but we say whatever they think whenever they think it. 
• We do not tend to recognize when apologies are necessary, but in the community, they are required. (The kids also noted that the repetition of the apology was an Again & Again signpost.)
• We don't share feelings with our parents. Eeeew! Jonas and family have to discuss feelings because it is a rule. 
• Jonas and Lily do not know what animals are. (Although they identified this one, many of my students were quite confused about how this could possibly be. I am curious to see how they react when they learn why.)
• Job roles are reversed in the story based on our stereotypical views (nurses are women; law enforcement workers are men). 
• In our culture, we are not given spouses. (This did lead to some discussion of different cultures and religions around the world. I also started giving them classmates and spouses, and they were not happy.)
• In our culture, there is not a limit on the number of kids or specified genders. (Some of the classes discussed that the babies must be given like the spouses because that's the only way this arrangement could happen. As they talked about this, they began to realize that the babies must be made in some unnatural way.)

I am proud of myself for a much better start to teaching this novel than I had last year, and I am proud of my students for showing that their brains do work right before a holiday. 

A Special Moment

I had a special moment with some students from my sixth period class today. I do not mean Church Lady "special" but a truly special moment. We talked about books. 

One student asked me what my favorite book is. The first one to pop in my mind was Emma Donoghue's Room, one that I share with every adult who asks me about books. It is a remarkable, haunting story, and I was explaining to a group of kids that I list it among my favorites because I have never forgotten the story. 

This opened up the flood gates. They were telling me about books they liked, books they didn't like, books they planned on reading, books that are better than the movies. Two even mentioned wanting to read The Lord of the Rings series. They were all talking over one another, and sure, my head was spinning, but I was silently basking in the glory surrounding me. 

They taught me something today. When I mention reading, they groan. When I start talking about specific books and what they are about, the kids light up. I told them about The Maze Runner, The Burn Journals, The Bite of the Mango, and The Fault in Our Stars this afternoon, and they were ready to run out and find them all. 

My passion, my addiction, my need for reading surpasses that of most people. When I can ignite even a flicker of a spark in my students about books, I am on cloud nine. 

______________________________

On a side but related note, I keep hearing my Pre-AP students talking to my academic students about reading Milkweed. I have academic students pleading with me to let them read it.

 I also have a Pre-AP student who finished the book last night. She said she couldn't put it down. 

The Giver: Chapter 1

While my Pre-AP students are reading Milkweed, my academic students will be reading The Giver. Last year, I will honestly admit that I did some of my worst teaching with The Giver. I was frustrated with my students. They refused to read outside of class, impeding the lessons I was trying to cover in class. For the most part, we listened to the book and did very little with it. Of course, when I was doing this, my newly-promoted secondary superintendent was brought to my classroom to view some of the finest teaching our school has to offer. (sigh) Not my best moment, but I refuse to let it happen again. 

Prior to beginning the novel, we will be going through our Texas Literacy Initiative vocabulary routine with the word release. Although I know my kids know this word, I want to put focus on it since it is such an important concept in the novel. We will be viewing the presentation with Nearpod so that I may assess understanding of the term. I am not expecting any issues here. We will come back to discuss this more after reading the first chapter of the book. 

Last year, I began by having my students create their own perfect societies, but it become more of a distraction and never truly connected to the novel the way I had initially intended. This year, I'm throwing that out the window. For chapter 1, we will focus on Contrasts & Contradictions from Notice and Note. They are already familiar with Contrasts & Contradictions, but now we are going to shift away from characters and focus on the setting. I want them delving deeply into the differences between Jonas' world versus our own to see what this "perfect" world is like. 

In preparing the Contrasts & Contradictions lesson, I incorporated Christopher Lehmans' Close Reading Ritual from Falling in Love with Close Reading. The lenses will be focused on the setting of the story. The patterns will be the Contrasts & Contradictions. We will then use this information to create a picture of Jonas' society. 

As with some of my previous lessons, I am going to have my students respond to the presentation questions using Nearpod. By using Nearpod, I ensure that every student submits a response, rather than letting another student answer on his/her behalf. I can skim through their responses and see who is understanding the text and the strategy, as well as who is not. This information is also saved in a report that I can use as needed.

This is definitely a better start from last year's teaching. Ain't nobody comin' back this year to say I ain't doin' my J-O-B!

Milkweed, Chapters 1 - 4

My Pre-AP class is reading (or going to be) Milkweed to wrap up the first semester. I handed out the books Thursday and asked them to read chapters 1-4 by Monday. During an informal survey Friday, I learned that about a third of my students had already started reading the book, and many were well past chapter 4. All responded that they were finding the book very interesting. Since I have never taught this book (nor have I finished reading it), I am excited by their initial feedback. 

The biggest problem I have with novels is wanting to teach too much and not being able to finish. I think I have already  made too much work for the first few chapters, but better earlier than later. I would rather enjoy the end of the novel rather than cram too much in at the end. 

Our big assignment for the entire novel is going to be to create a blog for the main character Stopthief. Through this, I can reinforce a number of skills, including point of view and characterization. I have never done this before, but since I have started blogging, I figure I can handle it. I'm excited to see what happens with this. 

For their work, we are going to be using Kidblog. I have heard wonderful things about it and have been playing with it. The site is easy to use and understand, and all work is private. Once I see how things go with Pre-AP, I will decide whether or not to add my other classes to the site. 

For their first blog assignment, I modified a lesson I found on Read Write Think:

To make sure they have done the reading this weekend, I have a quick "higher level" assignment for them to complete on Edmodo. I believe this assignment will be a bit more challenging than a quick T/F or multiple choice did-you-read pop quiz. It should also show if they actually read. 

We will then return to chapter 1 to discuss the Memory Moment signpost from Notice and Note. This will be the third signpost added to our class discussions. I debated about whether or not to include this piece since the students are reading ahead, but I still think that it is important to cover. If the kids already know too much, they can discuss why the moment turns out to be important rather than predicting. 

I have then created an interactive lesson for chapters 1-4 using Nearpod. I made the basic presentation then added slides for my students to ask questions about the text. As we go through the questions they write, I am going to have them write down three that they want to discuss with their groups. They will take notes over this in their Google documents. This group discussion will be used to write their learning logs next week. 

After all this, I need to figure out how many days I actually have left to finish this novel before finals! 

Questions? Feedback? All is welcomed. 

Another one down: Chime by Franny Billingsly

My insane need to read means that I will never be able to get through everything on my list, so in the past year, I have taught myself how to listen to audiobooks. Chime is one I listened to, and I have to admit that I was not impressed with the story. 

Chime was added to my list shortly after it came out based on a Kirkus starred review. Despite the Kirkus
claim, I am far from enthralled with Briony. I find her to be whiny and insecure, much in the same way I find Bella of Twilight to be. Weak female characters annoy me, especially teen ones. I do not want my female students to idolize these types of characters (although I cannot seem to get them to see the reality of Bella Swan). The first person narrative left me trapped in Briony's mind with no escape. 

The plotline itself drags through massive repetition. If I had read the book, I would have been able to skim through quite a bit. Unfortunately, I was forced to endure every word with the audio. I know the author used some things stylistically and for characterization, but at times, it was downright annoying. 

I will admit that there were three or four moments that I thought were wonderful. I perceived some bigger messages from Billingsly about imagination and fantasy in our world today. But I could have probably understand that in a lot less than ten hours of audio. 

My suggestion: PASS. 

Darn you, learning logs!

Next week, we go school wide with the weekly learning logs. Since I made the assignment, I decided to do a trial run today. Of course, I expected it to be an easy day. I was trying not to talk much due to a sore throat, but the best made plans...

I discussed the learning log with the students. I explained how this is going to be used throughout the school, that they will see it in all classes, that I will make them the experts, blah, blah, blah. I discussed how they do not have to address the four questions directly but are to use them as a guide for their response, as the response will depend on what they have learned in a class for the week. I waxed eloquent on the need to write in specific detail and not just make a list, using complete sentences, capitalization, and punctuation. 

I feel like all I did all day was waste my time and breath repeating myself. Days like this make me wonder if I am really doing any proficient teaching at all. 

Is this a complete sentence? Did this happen in the story?
I do not remember blood.

No, dear. This is not specfic. Nor did you know all of this.
You told me so in class. And you do not read outside of class.

Oh, thank goodness. We are at least headed in the correct direction.

Thank you. Someone listened in class and read the directions.

All right, all right. Maybe I do not have to quit after all.

So what have I learned from this?

• My students need explicit teaching on how to write about what they have been taught during the week. 
• My students need a review of what they have learned during the week before writing about what they have learned during the week. 
• The non-English teachers are about to feel some English teacher pain when it comes to reading student writing. Wahahahahahahahahaha!

My middle school funny of the day

In the middle of an independent work lesson, one of my male students says, "Ms. Foti, do you have a period?"

A female student sitting nearby burst out laughing. 

At the same time, my phone rang. My class and I were laughing so hard that my colleague on the other end starting laughing. 

Once I got off the phone, I asked the male student how old he thinks I am. I mean, forty might be "old," but it ain't OLD. 

So I asked why he was asking. With tomato-red face, he responded, "That's not what I meant! Do you have a class next period?"

Oh, the joys of middle school. TGIF.