Reading gets "unwound"
Using a Gateway book
I choose the book Unwind by Neal Shusterman for a whole class read because it's action packed and relatable but also has deep themes to explore. 56 out of 58 students said they enjoyed the book even though half of the class had negative feelings about reading in general. Students cited various reasons for enjoying the book: the adventure driven plot, the relatable characters, and the author's style of changing the narrator's voice throughout the book. My hope in using this book with the entire class, is that it will break down some of those negative feelings about reading and will lead to students finding other books to enjoy.
Designing projects that require deep thinking
After many discussions about why people read and write stories, students were encouraged to design a product or activity that showed their deep thinking about the messages contained in Unwind. Through various protocols and critique sessions, students used higher level critical thinking skills to show their own take on those messages.
Book projects included:
Book projects included:
- artistic expression
- zines
- socratic seminar
- movie trailers and short films
- fan fiction
authentic exhibition
Because our products were based on the book Unwind, it made sense that an exhibition audience would be people who had read the book...our class! Each type of book project had it's own, purposeful exhibition. The students who made artistic interpretations or zines presented their products in a roundtable viewing. Students viewed the art and zines, asked questions, and showed appreciation for the artists' hard work. The debate group decided to create their own structure and rules for their conversation based on a Socratic seminar style. Their audience was each other. Fan fiction authors added their stories to a HTM fan fiction web site and showed the class where to read more. We also watched the short films and movie trailers created by the various movie groups.