This week the Topics in Literature
students were busy researching and developing new courses of study for second
quarter. This quarter is slightly longer
than first quarter was, and it spans two vacations, so most kids decided that
they needed to pick out at least four books.
Many of them chose far more! We’ll
see how many they can get to. I also
decided to tweak a few things about the course.
We are upping the number of pages per week to 85 minimum before progress
reports and 90 minimum after, and I am going to take a few percentage points
away from each type of blog in order to have some to use in order to do spot
checks of their composition notebooks.
First quarter some of the students did a great job keeping their
composition book active, but others did not record much (or anything?) and went
into each blog with their memories only, having to look back and find concepts
and quotations to write about that night.
I want to avoid that this quarter, so I’m putting a renewed emphasis on
keeping a log of reading/ideas.
Below
I’ve included a list of who is studying what this quarter. We’re all hoping for more readers/commentators!
Ben D.L. – J.R.R. Tolkien
Ben K. – Native Americans
Brayden – athletes and addiction
Chris – Beat Generation
Colten – Lee Child novels
Eric – personal philosophy
Jak – crime
Jess – Frida Kahlo
John-Luc – local history
Kelcy – mystery and crime
Lauren – memoir
Luke – alternative housing
Max – apocalyptic novels
Michaela – medical illnesses
Mike – nature
Nicolette – running
Riley – Stephen King novels
Sean – rap music
Yiannis – James Patterson novels
All of these topics have great
potential, and I’m looking forward to seeing the students excel, especially now
that they are more comfortable blogging.
Personally, I think I am most intrigued by Luke’s topic, alternative
housing. I recently watched a
documentary called Tiny and have found the alternative housing movement
fascinating for several years. But all
of the topics are bound to teach me a lot, which, so far, is one of my favorite
aspects of this class. Some students
will be reading about concepts about which I know a great deal (Eric, Nicolette,
and Mike, for instance), but others will be totally new (Max’s and Jess’s). That will make my reading rewarding even
beyond the reward of seeing the students embrace literature and excel. They begin posting next week! As for what I’m reading, the last two books I’ve
read, Matthew Dicks’ Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend and Howard Frank
Mosher’s Waiting for Teddy Williams, have both focused on childhood, so
maybe I’ll make that my topic.
CJF
Oh, and here’s
what the research says about all of this choice!
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