Hopefully you’ve noticed your student reading this week’s short story and writing in their composition book at home. By using the composition book, students are challenged to rely less on technology for ideas and distractions and more on their cognitive abilities and personal penmanship. 

We’ve adopted a literature circle approach to our short stories this week, taking the week to focus on working in groups to discuss and analyze a text. In this way, our goal was to divide and conquer with each person being responsible for summarizing the story (practice is progress!) and then a specific part of analysis: vocabulary, discussion questions, or connections to the text. After groups met to share and discuss what they found for their role with interacting with text, each member reflected on their own and each member’s preparedness and participation.

To engage with your student, you could ask them: 

• what short story we are reading this week,
• the major plot points from the story (key to summarizing!),
• how well their group worked together, and
• Sixth grade: the guilt or madness of the protagonist in “The Tell-Tale Heart”.
• Seventh grade: the effect hindrances had on their ability to analyze symbols in “Harrison Bergeron”.
• Eighth grade: the guilt or madness of the protagonist in “The Black Cat”.

Keep reading into next week to see what we are engaging with next!