Today was really exciting. Transporting. Transformative.
1. Do now. Students had 2 minutes to review their reading before our oral quiz on the end of To Kill a Mockingbird!
2. Oral quiz. We had oral quiz questions for the rest of the novel (Ch. 28-31). During our oral quiz we discussed the implication of having two knives (a switchblade and a kitchen knife). Did Heck Tate remove the switchblade from Ewell’s body? Did Boo Radley use the kitchen knife to stab Bob Ewell, murdering him? Yes. It’s likely. P.S. Spoiler alert.
3. Freewrite. For five minutes, students wrote their response to this question: Are some lives more valuable than others? Or are we all “just alike”? Why? What makes some more valuable, if so?
4. Paideia Seminar preparation. Tomorrow, we will have a whole-class seminar discussion. To focus our conversation, we will be reading the article “The Courthouse Ring” by Malcolm Gladwell. Students began reading and annotating the article in class. Here’s the link if you’re interested or if you were absent: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/10/090810fa_fact_gladwell
Adapted version: The Courthouse Ring Modified for ESL and The Courthouse Ring Standard
HW: Read and annotate “The Courthouse Ring” for tomorrow. If, for some strange reason, you didn’t finish reading To Kill a Mockingbird, please do that tonight.
ALEXA GARVOILLE 