1B
1. Freewrite.
2. Focused Freewrite. Students reread the section on p. 48 of The Outsiders in which Ponyboy describes how he wishes he lived in the country to get away from his problems. Students then wrote about what place they would go to to escape their problems. We used the same sentence structures as Ponyboy does in his paragraph. This took students five minutes. We shared a few out loud.
3. Oral Quiz on Chapter 3 of The Outsiders.
4. Sentence Corrections. Students corrected a few incorrectly worded run-ons.
5. Chapter 4 read-aloud. The rest of class we read Chapter 4 out loud, stopping to discuss alternate options for the characters as we did. We discussed what else Ponyboy and Johnny could have said to the Socs to avoid a fight and what Ponyboy and Johnny could do after Johnny makes his crucial mistake. Students will need to read the rest of Chapter 4 at home.
HW: Read the rest of Chapter 4. Mark and explain five points in the chapter that relate to your motif.
2AB
1. Freewrite
2. Focused freewrite: What’s your shire? I told students a story about how “the shire” made an appearance in my family. We then looked at the numerous times Bilbo thinks of his “hobbit hole.” Students then used imagery to describe their own shire or hobbit-hole, a place, time, or activity that makes them feel happy, safe, and free of responsibility, a place they can think of in difficult times to make them feel lazy and wonderful. This writing is done in an effort to get students to feel a connection to Bilbo, which sometimes seems difficult.
3. Vocab tests returned and field trip money and permission slips collected.
4. Oral Quiz on Chapter 3 of The Hobbit.
5. Runes and moon-letters. Bilbo Baggins loves “maps” and “runes and letters and cunning handwriting.” In an attempt to enjoy what Bilbo enjoys, we spend about 10 minutes learning to decipher runes, shown on the maps at the front of the novel; runes are actually real letters historically used before the Latin alphabet was adopted. (Did you know you can MAKE YOUR OWN RUNE MESSAGES WITH A RUNE-GENERATOR? Too cool.)
HW: Read Chapter 4 of The Hobbit and take your 5-10 motif notes.
4B
1. Freewrite.
2. Focused freewrite: What’s your shire? I told students a story about how “the shire” made an appearance in my family. We then looked at the numerous times Bilbo thinks of his “hobbit hole.” Students then used imagery to describe their own shire or hobbit-hole, a place, time, or activity that makes them feel happy, safe, and free of responsibility, a place they can think of in difficult times to make them feel lazy and wonderful. This writing is done in an effort to get students to feel a connection to Bilbo, which sometimes seems difficult.
3. Oral Quiz on Chapter 3 and 4 of The Hobbit.
4. Tableau vivant. Students gathered in their motif groups to create two tableaux showing how their motif was especially important in chapters 3 and 4; the first tableau depicted a scene or moment the motif showed up and the second tableau could not use any characters––instead, students had to show what the novel is telling us about the importance of the motif. The students in the audience guessed at what the tableaux meant.
5. Reading Chapter 5 with a backchannel. We began reading Chapter 5, which students must read for homework. As we read, students noted their motif on a “backchannel” which in this case was a chatroom they had all joined and we projected onto the screen. Any time I read aloud something related to their motif, they typed into the chatroom what their motif was and how the line related. Students need to finish reading on their own for Monday.
HW: Read Chapter 5 and annotate your text for your motif.
ALEXA GARVOILLE 