First, in class we started with the Do Now: What does it mean to you when you hear the phrase: "to come of age"? During this discussion, many ideas were presented on this phrase, many thought of it as a sign of maturity. This was a great part of the class because we got to experience how are classmates think about certain topics, and it would be an important tool in the upcoming parts of the lesson.
After the Do Now, we reviewed a “Double Entry Journal”, which is a note taking strategy for the active reading of a text. You can connect your experiences to the experiences in the characters of the text. This allows us as readers to relate to the character and better understand the plot and character development.
After watching a video about narrative voice, in which the perspectives of a story (first/second/third person) were reviewed, we practiced the “Double Entry Journal”by reading through a text. This story was an excerpt of “Speak”, by Laurie Halse Anderson.
We paid close attention to diction, imagery, and syntax while highlighting what stood out to use.
It was a rather interesting story, about a girl in high school wandering through the cafeteria, thinking about where she should sit, except they went into great detail about her situation.
After reading the text and noting what stood out to us, we partnered up with people that were in our assigned groups, in which we would write our thoughts about the story based on quotes that stood out to us, and our partner would comment on what we wrote. It was interesting to see what our partners had to say about our comments, whether they agreed, disagreed, or even offered a deeper point that we weren’t quite getting to. This criticism brought out the thinking and deeply encouraged us as readers to dig deeper.
To finish off the lesson, we were given an independent activity. This activity consisted of 3 quotes that we found to be particularly authentic to the general idea of a teen’s voice. These quotes would lead us to answer these 2 questions:
Does Melinda’s sarcastic interior monologue seem authentic? Why or why not?
What inferences can students draw based on her voice? From her voicelessness?
These questions dug deeper into the story as we were able to closely relate to how our first day at high school might feel to come back. It asks us if we see this character as having an authentic voice of your average high school student, an authentic experience being the first day at high school.
In conclusion, the lesson was planned to make us, as readers, dive deep into the meaning of the text provided for us, to make us more efficient readers. This is where the lesson ends, reminding students that they can use their own self reflection to see further into how the character is feeling in their situation, and how the character will develop throughout the story.
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