Responding to Quotations

We spent today's class talking about how to respond to rich quotations in our books.  We began with a Tea Party activity, where students received a famous quotation to think and write about, then met with other students who had the same quotation to share ideas.

We then talked about some of the aspects that would make a quotation worth discussing.  Quotations would be worth talking about if they...

• were funny, sad, weird, shocking
• confused us
• said something profound/had a "double meaning"
• revealed a plot twist or surprise
• showed something about a character
• created an image in our head
• were something we could relate to, personally

We also talked about the different ways one could respond to a quotation.  A reader could...

• ask a question
• draw a picture
• think about the quotation from a new perspective
• pull it apart and analyze its parts
• look up words in it that are new, or confusing

Students then met in their Lit. Circles to discuss the most recent chunk of reading.  After discussions, students gave me some feedback about the progress of circle discussions, with a "What's Working/What's Not?" feedback form.  

Finally, students chose a new chunk to read and will prepare a Page of Thoughts (POT) to share next week on Thursday.

Literature Circles Begin!

Students were placed with their Lit. Circle books today.  If you were away from class, please see me to pick up your book.  Groups met to decide how much of the book to read for Wednesday's class.  I also distributed a "First Impressions" page to be filled out as you read the first section.  If you lost your sheet, you can print one from the link at the side.

We also spent some time reviewing some poetic devices which were learned last year.  In small groups, students worked to identify sets of similes, metaphors, personifcation, hyperbole and oxymoron examples.  We will continue our work with these devices next day.