Over the next few weeks I’ll be celebrating Christmas and New Year’s with family. I hope you have a wonderful holiday, and if you’re looking for something to read, consider this: Develop Social-Emotional Skills in the Classroom Frame Your Reading Curriculum Around Genre Set Virtuous New Year’s Resolutions Do Some Reading About Reading
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How to Plan an In-Depth Novel Study Using “The Girl Who Drank the Moon”
When it comes to novel study the pros are the cons. What I mean is this: novel study gives you the chance to do a comprehensive, whole group reading of a quality grade-level text. BUT, comprehensive, whole group readings take a lot of time. Time that you might be pressured to use otherwise. So in order for novel study to work in most classrooms it needs to be: standards/common-core aligned directly tied to your larger curriculum organized (so you don’t squander valuable time) connected in some way to test prep The last one always got me in the classroom–when I have so little time to begin with, and a percentage…
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Finding the Big Virtues in Your New Year’s Resolutions, (Little Virtues, Part 5)
“We do not bother to teach the great virtues, though we love them and want our children to have them; but we nourish the hope that they will spontaneously appear in their consciousness some day in the future, we think of them as being part of our instinctive nature, while the others, the little virtues, seem to be the result of reflection and calculation and so we think they absolutely must be taught.” NATALIA GINZBURG, THE LITTLE VIRTUES Over the summer, my husband and I did a parenting check-in. We listed some topics that we wanted to reflect on (discipline, meal time, spiritual formation), then we went to separate rooms…
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How to Chart an Emotional Plot During Novel Study
While re-reading The Girl Who Drank the Moon, I was struck by the role of emotion in moving the plot forward. Novels are always laden with emotion, but in this book emotion drives the plot in a unique way. This is mostly due to the role of sorrow in the book. Like magic, sorrow is a named and assumed power in the story–it shapes both characters and events. Ignatia rules through sorrow, and the characters find their freedom by piercing the fog that sorrow has created around them. This reminded me of the activities I made for my Labeling Emotions unit (part of my RULER bundle). These activities ask students…
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The Little Cannot Contain the Great: Engaging the Eternal Over the Relevant (The Little Virtues, Part 4)
“The great can contain the little, but by the laws of nature there is no way that the little can contain the great.” NATALIA GINZBURG, THE LITTLE VIRTUES One helpful aspect of the big/little virtue template is its focus on priority. In her essay, Ginzburg is adamant that little virtues aren’t problematic because they are bad, rather they are problematic only when they aren’t moderated by big virtues. The trouble starts when we mis-order or equate big and little virtues. Here’s a battle between big and little virtues that I bet a lot of us feel: the call to engage the eternal, versus the call to only engage the relevant.…
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A Simple Way To Teach Symbolism Using “The Girl Who Drank The Moon”
Symbolism can be hard to teach. It’s one of those things you understand, but can’t easily put words to. When I try to define “symbolism” I find myself grasping for examples rather than definitions. In literature symbols are recurring objects that represent something (idea, emotion, truth) beyond themselves. Of course that may not mean much to students without some examples. In The Girl Who Drank the Moon there are several symbols that could garner a good discussion of symbolism. The ones I’ve chosen to focus on are paper, birds, and tigers. Symbol #1: Paper Paper comes up a lot in the book. Here are some examples: The Madwoman: Locked in…
