Whale Talk - Day 9

Yesterday was the class I had anticipated since we started reading this book. The kids were finally done with the novel, and we could talk about everything ... the full circle of the plot, the ending, just all of the things that I've had to avoid since we started. It was great. The whole time we were talking, I kept thinking to myself, "I should have taped this. I don't want to forget anything." Then, I starting thinking, "Just be here. Right now. Listen, you'll remember what's important." So, I decided to wait to write this post. I wanted to let everything settle, so that I could cover the most important things. There's so much more I could write here, but I still have two class periods to go through and reflect with the students. Stay tuned to see the final, final moments.

_________________________________________

We started class with a 3ish minute think time for the students; I asked them to write down the words, and phrase that they thought of when they finished the novel. This is what we came up with:


Some of them were really dissatisfied with the end of the novel, but they also weren't entirely sure what had happened throughout the whole thing. So, we started at the beginning of the reading (chapter 14). It wasn't the most exciting chapter, but some great and very important things happened. One included Heidi (Rich Marshall's stepdaughter - biracial stepdaughter). She scrubbed her arm with a brillo pad. Until it was raw. The silence in my classroom when we talked about that was so loud. That topic didn't last long, because we moved on to discuss Heidi's mother, Alicia.

It was Alicia who brought Heidi around Rich. In the eyes of my ninth grade students she's just as bad, if not worse that Rich. She, according to them, is supposed to protect her kids no matter what. She shouldn't get the second chance given by the Jones family. One student blew me away, though. She brought up how hard it would be to just cut Rich out. That doing so could be just as bad for Heidi as having him around, because he's a dangerous guy. Still, though, they didn't think Alicia should be around her kids at all because she goes back to Rich over and over. Then, Ms. Davis jumped in ...

I watch enough SVU to know that taking a child away from everything she knows is just as bad as having one abusive parent. It's hard to explain that to kids, though. They can't wrap their heads easily around the idea that people who make mistakes don't always learn from them the first time. There are some who still don't like Alicia, and who think she needs to be locked away, but they considered her point of view, and that's what I wanted.


Some other conclusions drawn during our discussion of chapter 14:
- Chris Coughlin is a big deal - and he LOVES TJ Jones.
- Mr. Simet's speech at the winter sports banquet shows the very best things about all of the Mermen.
- Icko is the man.
- The Tao Jones showed us what The Tao is about.

Most of our discussion surrounded the climax of the novel (which I refuse to give away, although I'm dying to - go read the book, so that we can talk!). If I try to sit here and write about what we said, I'm inevitably going to give something away, so I'll tell you the following:

In reading the climax, a girl who "hated" this book cried, a class that talks constantly was dead silent, and we all heard a little whale talk in the advice "not one minute for revenge".