Whale Talk - Day 5

Despite the fact that there is laundry fold, a dog to bathe, and grading to do, I'm sitting here writing a post on Whale Talk progress. There isn't a ton to report, but I started this, and I plan on finishing it.

One of my great regrets with this unit - which is only half way over at this point - is that I haven't given myself enough time. With all of the standard grade 9 curriculum elements, the previous teachers assigned a novel as outside reading. They chose The Count of Monte Cristo. While I'm certain this book is probably good, it's not WT. WT needs to be taught explicitly, and there isn't enough time to do everything I want to. I've had to make sacrifices, but it's still going well.

On Friday, we started out with a reading check quiz. 5 questions to make sure they read their 60 pages for the week. They did. All of them. 15 out of 15 read. Not bad for a novel - especially when the honors sophomores in my homeroom tell me they blow off entire novels; well, A Tale of Two Cities. But, I digress. All the kids did well on their reading check. On the back, they had to respond to this:
Please write a few paragraphs explaining your reactions to the novel so far. What do you like? Dislike? Are there things confusing you?

I got more mixed reviews than in previous days, but no one hates it. The kids who said they didn't like it also said they were confused. Crutcher uses flashback a lot to elaborate on characters' lives when the information is necessary. We talked about that in class. One student asked why he didn't just give us all the info in the exposition (I was excited she remembered that term). Well, B, it's a need-to-know thing. If we got all the info at the start, there would be nothing driving the plot. Each character has secrets and unexpected elements to their life. If we knew that from the beginning, it wouldn't be as effective when things all come together - and, oh boy, do they.

Anyhoo ... kids that love it. I took pictures. Here's what a few said:






These were most definitely some of the BEST chapters. We spent almost an hour engaged in conversation. They asked questions, I answered. They discussed characters and events. It was just so great to sit in class and talk about LITERATURE. This, after all, is why I became and English teacher.