Weekly Update
Book Recs, March Madness, Romeo and Juliet, Long Way Down, Open Letter Contest, and more
Happy Monday everyone,
After spending much of the weekend outdoors and soaking up the warmer weather while it lasted, I’m grateful for a district PD day today and the opportunity to reset our classroom — both figuratively and literally. I cannot wait to put on a podcast and spend an hour or two organizing our bookshelves, putting up student work (excited to share some of the fantastic one-pagers with y’all), and planning for the next three weeks. Let’s get right to it. (And, as always, please reach out if you have any questions!)
Book of the Week: I recently finished Sarah Everett’s The Probability of Everything, and I was absolutely blown away. You will not find any spoilers here :) I look forward to discussing it with our middle schoolers next month. Reach out if you’re planning to read & discuss the book with your Project LIT chapter this spring. Would love to collaborate!
“READ WIDELY, READ OFTEN” campaign: To help students find their next read, we’ll continue to share book recommendations across a whole bunch of categories over on Instagram, including books with green covers, duologies, and graphic novels. Share your suggestions here!
March Madness in the Classroom: The brackets are out, and I have absolutely no idea who I am going to pick :) Admittedly, I’ve watched very little college basketball this year, but I always love the tournament and plan to lean into March Madness in our classroom. I put together an Instagram post highlighting many of the activities and resources from my 3/3 newsletter. See item #5 for more thoughts.
Wrapping up Romeo and Juliet: Even if you don’t read R&J with students, I think you may find value in some of the following activities:
Sonnet #1: Last week, students worked in groups to write an epilogue for Romeo and Juliet, using the prologue as inspiration. (Reach out if you’d like to see some student examples!) *Note: It may be fun to have students try writing a sonnet that provides closure for their independent reading book.
Sonnet #2: We didn’t get to sonnet #2 last week, so we will start here on Tuesday. After a gallery walk, where we’ll view some of the most memorable examples from last year’s group, students will first brainstorm and then write a sonnet about LOVE (love of a person, food, sport, hobby, season, pet, family, place, etc.) or HATE (envy, heartbreak, grief, pet peeve, etc) or perhaps a combination of the two (love & hate).
One-Pager: I couldn’t be more pleased with how our one-pagers turned out last week! Again, this task works well with any text, choice or whole-class. For our R&J one-pagers, the outside border included four key quotations from the play along with a brief analysis, the inside border featured key themes & symbols, and the eight interior panels demonstrated understanding of the following: Summary; Character; Setting; Conflict; Plot (Pivotal Scene 1); Plot (Pivotal Scene 2); Writing Style & Author’s Craft; Critique. (Will try to share student examples this week!)
Assigning Blame: Who do you find most at fault for the tragic deaths of Romeo and Juliet? Students worked in groups to develop their “Blame Chart” before writing a two paragraph analysis here. This was an awesome way for us to prepare for our upcoming mock trial, where Friar Laurence will be charged with involuntary manslaughter. Which leads to our next item…
Mock Trial: This will be our focus for the week (along with our sonnet #2, Article of the Week, and independent reading). In short, our class will participate in a mock trial on Thursday and Friday. We have a team of lawyers charging the Friar (the prosecution), a team of lawyers defending the Friar, a judge, a bailiff, a juror, and a host of witnesses (students who will come to the stand and answer questions from the point of view of the nurse, Lord Capulet, Friar John, and Friar Laurence himself). Be sure to check out this video for inspiration, and again, reach out if you have any questions.
Bracket Possibilities: There are so many classroom possibilities here. Along with our Poetry Madness, I’m hoping to have students engage in other “head-to-head” analysis, including:
Character Faceoff: In this WRAP prompt (featured in Just Read It), students pick two characters to go “head-to-head” in a literary matchup. Students can create their own categories, or we can assign them. Possible categories include name, approximate age, hometown, friends and family, best attribute, toxic trait, talents and interests, pet peeves, core desire, and core fear. Some responses have a clear right/wrong answer while many encourage students to make creative inferences. Ultimately, students will choose a “winner” and write a strong paragraph explaining why _________ is the superior character.
Book Faceoff: In this WRAP prompt, students pick two books to go “head-to-head” in a literary matchup. Possible categories include character development, plot, writing style, “binge-ability”, and emotional impact. However, be sure to encourage students to come up with their own categories, as well. Note that the final task, where students defend their selection, can easily be dressed down (as a brief, handwritten response on the bottom or back of the graphic organizer) or dressed up (as a typed, multiparagraph response). This activity also makes a great display; we can post the completed “Book Faceoff” posters on our classroom and hallway bulletin boards.
I think I want students to create some sort of matchup of their choice? For example, students could pit two of their favorite athletes against one another (Jordan or LeBron is the obvious one, right?), or perhaps their favorite artists (or songs), movies/TV shows, restaurants, etc. Still lots to figure out, but there’s potential for an authentic task that would push students to apply several literacy skills. Let me know if you have any ideas/suggestions, or have tried something lke this in the past! As I write this paragraph, perhaps this is just a twist on the traditional “review” writing? Students conduct a side-by-side analysis/comparison/review of two things and ultimately select a winner, according to their own scoring system?
Long Way Down + Romeo and Juliet: As I mentioned last week, one of my ELA sections is going to listen to Long Way Down together (while the other classes will jump back into their indepenent reading books). Cannot wait to see what connections they make between the two texts. I’ll definitely be revisting this LWD unit plan ($), as well. (If you’re planning to teach Long Way Down this spring, perhaps during National Poetry Month, don’t hesitate to reach out!) And speaking of Long Way Down, I highly recommend this 2018 conversation between Jason Reynolds and Trevor Noah. (I even write about this interview, particularly Reynolds’s distinction between literature and literacy, in JUST READ IT.)
Poetry Madness: Share your favorite poems to read with middle and/or high school students here! And check out some of our favorites from last year here. Here are a few reader suggestions — thanks to everyone who has already competed the Google form!
"Rat Ode" by Elizabeth Acevedo (paired with her introduction where she shares her interaction with her professor that inspired this "clap back")
Crossing by Jericho Brown. Anything by Clint Smith, Warsan Shire, or Rudy Francisco. Good Bones by Maggie Smith. You Get Fat When You're in Love by Jose Olivarez.
"Failing in the Presence of Ants" (Gary Soto), "You Love a Thing" and "Absolute" (Jacqueline Woodson)
My poetry playoffs are during April, and we always do spoken word poetry videos. The kids get so into them. Some of my favorites are Rudy Francisco--anything by him; Shane Koyczan-To This Day; Maya Mayor-Perfect; and Dear Basketball-Kobe Bryant.
NYT Learning Network Contest. What’s bothering you? Who could do something about it? What could you say to them that would persuade them to care, or to make change? And … what if we all read your letter? How could you make us care too? These are some of the questions we’re asking you to ponder for our new Open Letter Contest.
Article of the Week: See below for a running list of articles we’ve read this year.
“Your Face May Soon Be the Ticket. Not Everyone is Smiling.”
Here’s Kelly Gallagher’s running list of AoWs for the 23-24 school year
UPDATES & REMINDERS:
Project LIT Book Club: As a reminder, you can check out all of our 23-24 Project LIT selections (along with all of our previous picks) in one place. You can check out many of our images and links here. Thanks again to Rebecca A. for creating this fantastic slideshow, featuring all of the YA titles sorted by genre, to help students find their next read. And are the most recent MG titles in one place (thank you, Stephanie!). If anyone decides to create additional Project LIT resources — please pass them along so that I can share with our community!
JUST READ IT is officially out in the world! You can order here (try using the code LEAPYEAR for 29% off + free shipping — if it doesn’t work, try using RAVEN25 for 25% + free shipping.) Corwin has also shared an excerpt from the book; check out Chapter 1 here. Thanks again to everyone who continues to support the book and spread the word. Book promotion falls entirely on the author, and as a full-time teacher and dad, there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to mess with the TikTok and Instagram algorithms. And if you have a minute, a positive review on Goodreads or Amazon would be greatly appreciated.
As always, happy reading,
Jarred