Taking Home Ralph, Piggy, and Jack: Students Investigate Society
Help me give my students a full set of Lord of the Flies (versus a shared classroom set) so that they can take the novel home with them and improve their independent reading and comprehension.
My students come from culturally, economically, and politically diverse backgrounds. Luckily, at our high school students use this diversity to thrive, becoming internationally minded, independent, and empathetic learners.
Entering 9th grade can be a difficult transition for young people, especially in the Chicago Public School system where the majority of students come from a plethora of middle schools.
So, it is important that our 9th grade curriculum reflects our diverse population, and provides opportunity for emotional connection and personal growth.
My students are searching for passion in anything and everything that we read, discuss, and write - which is why they need access to as many novels, plays, and short stories as possible - with the ability to have enough copies for each student to take home.
My Project
These books will allow my students to take home an individual copy of Lord of Flies. This is imperative in enriching their outside, independent reading and comprehension skills. Currently, we only have enough books to have a "classroom set" which means that the books stay in the classroom, and each class shares throughout the day. This makes it extremely difficult to encourage students to dive deep into the novel.
Without these books, students have to spend the class time reading instead of discussing themes, comprehending plot, and challenging opposing ideas in the classroom.
Lord of the Flies is a classic piece of literature which uses symbolism to help guide my freshmen students towards understanding, comprehending, and challenging the concepts that go into building a civilization (allowing them to more deeply understand democracy). Some themes that the students uncover include: civilization vs. savagery; individualism vs. community; and, loss of innocence.
Students will participate in engaging classroom discussion, they will conduct research into outside texts that support their claims they make about Lord of the Flies, and they will give their first classroom presentation of the year.
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