Well, we have started a new unit in 7th and 8th grade Bilingual LA and it is going pretty well so far. The students are split up in 3 groups reading 3 different books,
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton,
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, and
Reality Check by Peter Abrahams. Most of them seem to like their books so far. Our new unit focuses on the themes of Rising to the Challenge and Identity. Most of the characters in our books are struggling with 'tough stuff' and trying to decide/discover who they are.
We are running our lit circles a little differently this time. Instead of the typical vocabulary, discussion leader, illustrator, summarizer roles, we are trying something new. I read in a article for my graduate class about Digital Storytelling so I decided to try it out. The students take on the roles of director, producer, writer and editor and as they read they are creating Storyboards that summarize and help them visualize the most important scenes from their books. At the end the students will use those roles to actually create a movie, or a digital story, about their book. They will either create a live action movie in iMovie using the iPads or they will use Photostory to create a picture story with voice over about their book. Wish us luck! We will upload our videos when they are finished!
