Day 11 and 12

Yesterday, the students finished the novel. Today, we discussed themes that emerged from the book. Some of them were brought up in previous discussions, such as stereotypes and ignorance. Students used their lists of highly descriptive words as well as the novel to come up with themes. The following ideas were discussed: tolerance, diversity, prejudice, judgemental, pessimistic, ambition, persistence. Every time a new idea came up, I simply asked, "Why do you think this is a theme present in the novel? Give me evidence." I did not tell the students they were right or wrong. By the end of class, the students decided that some themes were more prevalent than others. Their assignment for the night is to write about the themes they think are most important from the book. I asked them to think about what the author would want his readers to learn from the novel. This will also be their last blog to their teacher-partners.



I don't know if I will do this blogging with my students in the future. In some ways, I've really liked it. It very much supports inquiry learning, which is what I was going for with this project. The teachers provide the students with good questions and the students also practice generating good questions. I'm just not sure if it is totally necessary. I think I could have provided all of the scaffolding for my students instead of the teacher partners. It was neat to have some inter-generational conversations take place though. I guess I'm still undecided about the effectiveness.



I have been using the critical thinking rubric to grade students writing/blogging. It has worked well for me. It is nice to have a set list of criteria to look for in the students' writing. Some students can be great writers, but lack critical thinking skills in their writing. This writing rubric has helped me to understand both the reading and the writing process and how they are connected.



Tomorrow, students will begin to plan their own seed projects where they will design a plan to plant a seed of change within their own community. I hope that students will be able to see that a little kindness/charity can go a long way. I'll be interested to see what they come up with. I've been encouraging students to think about this project throughout the reading of the novel. There are many ideas in the book (such as the themes discussed above) that might help them in designing their own projects.