Eighth grade is a pivotal year in the life of a student. Many of them are making choices about who they'll be and how they'll be, particularly when it comes to their feelings about school. My goal is to help them see themselves as capable and adaptable learners.
I teach regular eighth grade English.
Our school has both honors English and an Advanced Learning Lab, so the students that end up in my class tend to feel like they have failed at English. My job is to reawaken the love for reading and writing that burned in all of them when they were back in early elementary school. They are good kids who require some extra motivation and feedback to succeed.
For students at this age and ability level, engagement with a text is a crucial step. The Wednesday Wars is engaging on multiple levels. First, it has an interesting historical background dealing with the Vietnam war. To add a level to this, each chapter introduces a piece of a Shakespeare play. This naturally allows the students to experience Shakespeare as a survey course, which whets their appetites for further Shakespeare reading that they will do in high school and beyond.
My Project
I plan on using these copies of The Wednesday Wars to allow my students to each take a copy home with them. Reading and annotating texts on their own without a teacher dictating the meaning of the text to them has proven benefits in developing discernment and critical thinking skills.
I will be teaching them about the 1960s, including the Vietnam War, along with giving them a survey course on Shakespeare as background for their individual reading experience. Beyond this, the book has masterful character creation and captures the imagination and interest of middle school students.
Having enough copies of The Wednesday Wars to send a book home with each student will let them experience reading a book the way it should be done -- not painfully and piecemeal in straight-back chairs in class, but in big gulps and quiet moments on comfy couches and even lying stomach down on a bed.
I want students to read on the bus and in between lessons and even at night under the covers. This can only happen if each student gets a copy to read on their own.
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