What's so important about the theme of a story?

This week, students learned about the importance of the theme(s) in novels and writing.  After having finished reading the novel Eleven by Tom Rodgers, students extended their thinking even further through theme analysis. 

We discussed theme as the message the author wants to convey to its readers and which appears repeatedly throughout the story.  It's a broad idea that can be applied to life and usually not explicitly stated in the text.  Instead, the theme(s) must be inferred by the reader and derived by reasoning. Theme helps a good story become a compelling one. It ties the protagonist's internal journey to the external plot, while giving readers something to care about and someone to root for. What happens when that link is missing? What if the protagonist doesn’t have a goal to strive for? You’d have a plot that goes nowhere and readers losing interest. Themes allow readers to relate to the characters and their struggles and to feel invested in the outcome (and oh, how your children were thoroughly invested in the outcome of Eleven). This was a great mentor text for my students - a perfect model for their own narrative writing journeys this term.

As a culminating activity, students created iMovie book theme trailers, which were presented this afternoon. Here are just a few of the relevant and interesting themes students inferred from the story, as conveyed through their trailers:  "Better to light a candle than curse the darkness", Kindness doesn't cost anything", Sometimes what you already have is more important than what you want" and "Sometimes something really good can come out of something really bad". Such positive messages from such deep thinkers!  

GLOBAL LEARNING PROJECT UPDATE:

Let the research begin!

Now that students have finished conducting digital handshakes with their teammates and teachers from China, Singapore, Australia and Pennsylvania, we've moved into the initial research stage of our projects. Students have been assigned to their global teams, as well as a topic to begin exploring for this project. Topics were inspired by the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development - ranging from sustainability to poverty to climate and environment. We're using Edmodo (a communication, collaboration, and coaching Web tool) to work with our global partners. The objective for students is to explore global issues and to foster meaningful discussions with students of varying backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. Edmodo is a great platform for this. Learner outcomes from this project include:

• Gaining an understanding of the lives of others in the project through sharing schools and lifestyles
• Realizing that children are the same regardless of where they live in the world, and that global issues affect all of us
• Exploring ‘glocalization’ and how to think global, but act local
• Exploring action ideas that support better understanding of the world by working with others in the world

Some of the essential questions (questions that stimulate thought, provoke inquiry and direct the course of student research) that students ultimately aim to answer are:

    1. What are the essential issues and challenges of being a citizen of the world?
    2. How can we connect with each other through our differences and commonalities?
    3. How does your geography, history and lifestyle of where you live impact your global understanding?
    4. What are the essential ideas around researched global issues and how can we share 
        these?

As you can see, students were hard at work this week conducting their initial research on their assigned topics. You're getting a glimpse of the newest generation of global citizens!

Socratic Seminar #1

3 hours ago

Today, students in my homeroom class participated in their first Socratic seminar, diving deeper into the novel, Eleven, by Tom Rodgers. Students explored thoughts and ideas that extended their thinking beyond and about the text (inferences, predictions, what-if scenarios and author's craft). They arrived well-prepared and were active participants, bringing relevance and meaning to this gripping novel about the tragedy of September 11, 2001, narrated from the perspective of an 11 year-old boy. This was a wonderful opportunity for students to build a culture of student-led inquiry and discussion, not to mention deepening their understanding of the events of this tragic day. We have almost finished reading this book and what I love most about it (beside the fact that it inspires some pretty spectacular literature discussions) is that it reminds all of us that the truly terrible things that happen should never be eclipsed by the smaller, wonderful things, and that kindness is truly an amazing gift that we can give to one another.

What does it mean to be a global citizen?

In 2015, the United Nations presented the Global Goals for Sustainable Development; 17 targets to end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and address climate change for everyone by the year 2030. If the goals are met, they will ensure health, safety and the sustainable future of our planet for everyone living on it. Our best hope of achieving these goals? Our children! Twenty-five percent of the world's population are under the age 14. Let them shape our future!

I introduced "GLOBAL GOALS MONDAYS" (aka GGM) to my social studies classes this week. What is it? Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) + Flipgrid (a digital collaborative learning platform) for a global collaborative learning experience. The purpose is to help students understand the Goals, how they impact their own life and others around the world, what steps should be taken to improve life for all, and how we can work together to help achieve the Goals and create a better world for today and for the future. An in-depth focus on each of the individual Goals will take place in the classroom every Monday. We will work toward putting our understanding of the Goals and our ideas for making and influencing positive change in the world to work, as we collaborate and learn together with students from around the world.

“We only have one planet. We have nowhere else to go. If we use our creative powers properly, we don’t need anywhere else. If we take care of it, and each other, everything we need is right here” 

- Sir Ken Robinson, Author/Educator

One of the best ways to inspire a rich literature discussion using collaborative thinking... Tabletop twitter! #werockedthis