Learning About Fantasy Writing with Eragon

Winter break fell smack-dab in the middle of the fantasy writing unit. I am taking advantage of this opportunity (look at the sunny side!) by asking students to read a fantasy book by the end of the break in order to keep their minds on the genre. When we return, I'll ask them to do some reflection on their reading based on the genre definition we constructed at the beginning of the unit. Then I'll have them apply those ideas to their fantasy story drafts to ensure they are writing in the genre. 

image from Amazon.com

In keeping with my do-what-the-students-do philosophy of teaching reading and writing, I am reading fantasy over the break. I picked Eragon by Christopher Paolini, a book I have heard about for years from students and my own children, but one which I haven't felt motivated to read. At nearly 500 pages, I knew it would take me some time and stamina to get through it. Besides, I am a little tired of the traditional magical fantasy genre-- after Lord of the Rings, what else is there to the hero's quest story? 

But if I only read young adult books that I knew I'd like, I would be missing a huge opportunity to connect with students who like to read other things (like quest-based magical fantasy books). So I packed it into my backpack along with my journal as I set off for my winter break travels. 

One week later, and I'm on page 440. Here are some things that I noticed about Eragon as a fantasy book (spoiler alert-- I may have to reveal certain plot events to make my point):

Luke & Obi Wan from pinterest

• Eragon and Brom are like Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi (Star Wars): novice and master, orphan and substitute father figure, novice thrust into adulthood before he's ready when the master dies.
• Eragon and Murtagh are like Frodo Baggins and Aragorn (AKA Strider) (Lord of the Rings): The young hero is suspicious of the unknown and seemingly dangerous stranger at first, but is in a situation where he must rely on him for survival and help. As they journey together, they learn trust and respect, even brotherhood.

  

  Aragorn from wikipedia.com

• The idea that True Names have power (every being has a True Name which is not the everyday name that is used in the world-- when one knows another's True Name, they can control the other) is in a lot of books, but I think Ursula K. LeGuin did it first in her short story "The Rule of Names". 
• Dragons and Dragon Riders communicate telepathically was seen in Anne McCaffrey's Dragonrider series. It is a convenient device, however, so that Eragon and Saphira can "talk" things through without those around them listening in on their conversation. 
• Eragon's world is like medieval times, a common fantasy setting. People ride horses as transportation, the cities are filthy with no modern conveniences, food is meat cooked over fires and bread with few vegetables, weapons are swords and knives and bows & arrows (and magic). 
• Anything goes. I guess this is a basic tenant of fantasy. Eragon becomes an amazing swordsman in mere months. He learns magic and is incredibly powerful with very little training. He and one other defeat deadly fierce Urgal creatures with only bruises and scrapes to show for it, although they are outnumbered. The good guys show up to rescue them just in the nick of time! Whew! Eragon meets the girl of his dreams (literally) after only a short search.

I am not sure how all these noticings will help my short story. I guess the message is that it's OK to borrow elements from other texts as long as they are remolded into your own story. After all, the stories we are writing during our writing unit are a way to practice narrative writing techniques. The goal is not to be the most creative or original with our ideas. If a young writer (or an old one like me, but one who needs the scaffold) needs to start with a familiar plot line, that's OK. We are still learning how to do all those other narrative things like writing dialogue that reveals character traits, and structuring the plot either chronologically or with flashbacks, and using inner thinking to help get the message of the story through to the reader. If, along the way, a creative and unique idea emerges, then that's cause for celebration and wonder! 

Musical Jingles as a Social Studies Presentation Tool

One of the things I like about the Teacher's Curriculum Institute (TCI) materials is that it suggests brain-based learning activities that are developmentally appropriate. One of my favorites is the Colonial Fair: students promote their colony to prospective immigrants. Students in teams of 4 (ish) design a poster that includes labelled visuals of at least 4 of their colony's best features and includes a slogan, they write a sales pitch, and they write a jingle which they have to sing during the fair. Although students hate that it is low-tech ("There weren't any computers in 1700! You know what an ear of corn looks like; you don't need to look it up on Google Images to be able to draw it!"), I love that they are using so many modalities to manipulate the information.

During the Colonial Fair, the groups split into two teams: one stays, the other strays (one team presents, while the other team visits the other booths), and then they switch. Visitors have a rating sheet with them so they can rate each colony for how enticing it is: 5) Leaving Today!, 4) Saving Money for the Trip, 3) Choice Between Paris and Here-- Can't Decide!, 2) Going to the Beach Instead, or 1) Staying Home and Reading a Good Book (thanks to Lee Piscionari for the rating sheet!).

Once everyone has visited the booths, they answer this question in writing: Based on your experience at the Colonial Fair, which colony would you want to move to and why (provide at least 3 reasons)? I do a quick share-out as one last review opportunity.

Fun, right? And a great brain-based multi-modality learning activity!

One of the hardest parts for students in past years has been the jingle. They just didn't really get what a jingle would include or how to write one. I was thinking about this when I stumbled upon Mr. Betts' Class historical song parodies. The original one I stumbled upon was 'What Does John Locke Say?' (based on "What Does the Fox Say?"), but then I noticed titles that related to the work we were doing with the colonies: "Moving to the Colonies (Miley Cyrus/ 13 Colonies Parody)" and "Pennsylvania: The Quaker's Delight (The Lion King Parody)". Aha! This would be a great way to introduce the jingle concept!

The results were magnificent! Here are some favorites:

Pennsylvania [To the tune of "Call Me Maybe"]

I moved to Pennsylvania
I have more pay and more rights
Now I can say what I feel
I truly love my life
We're treated fairly now
and with religious freedom
where you are equal as well
I was searching for this
So come and join us
Live free
be accepted
the forests
and hills call you
so come and join us here maybe
Hey I just met you
And this is crazy
but live here with me
we can be wealthy
It's hard to think of life not like this
so live here with me
we all have freedom
we don't support war
and love equality
we farm and lumber
or we build ships
unless we're merchants
or trade with tradesman

(and it goes on for 6 more verses!)

Virginia [To the tune of "Rude"] 
Hey, it's Virginia, we are the first
successful English Settlement
Our religion is Anglican and we pray
in the Church of England
Our winters are cold but they're not that bad
Our summers are ho-o-ot
We're self-governing with elected assembly
     (House of Burgesses)
Our economy is farming, plantations, and small independent farms
but there's more
    (to talk about)
Our settlement thrives on the sale of tobacco because there's
a lot of land and there's more to plant
Come on and move to Virginia!

New York [To the tune of "Lazy Song"]
Today I just landed in New York colony
I just want to earn some money
I bet you didn't know we were named after the Duke of York
Cause he gave us a lot of land for this colony
We have religious freedom and that's a good thing
We gotta ton of jobs for you and the fam
Too bad for the settlement of New Amsterdam
Oh yes I said it! I said it, I said it cause I can
New York is the best colony over here
(whistle) 

Hahahaha! I love it! I think I will dip into more Mr. Betts' Class parodies as we move onto other topics. It definitely got the students engaged and thinking about how to communicate the essentials of their information in a new way. I wonder what they'll come up with for The Constitution?

Teaching Argument Through Primary Source Evidence

A couple of weeks ago, a literacy consultant, Stevi Quate, came to our school to work with the middle and high school teachers. Our Director of Curriculum and Professional Development invited her, knowing that the English departments at both levels were implementing the CCSS, as had the Math departments, and that Social Studies and Science were soon to follow. Literacy is a big push for all those subjects in the CCSS, and Stevi would be a great jump-start into improving our practice.

Stevi sat down with my co-teacher and me one morning to help us think through improving argument skills in eighth grade Social Studies: Early American History. One of our big units of the year is The Road to Revolution, during which students take on the role of a historical Patriot or Loyalist, and debate, during a series of Town Hall meetings, the issue of rebellion. Over the past few years, the results have been something like this: "Um, so I think we should rebel because, you know, the Stamp Act was really unfair." "Yeah, me too. The Stamp Act and the Quartering Act." (Etc.) Uninspired, mindless repetition of textbook content.

Stevi introduced us to the work of George Hillocks, Jr., and his text Teaching Argument Writing, Grades 6-12 (Heinemann, 2011). In the sample first chapter, Hillocks demonstrates his methodology for teaching students how to notice evidence, explain the "rule" (he also calls it "warrant"), and draw conclusions. He uses crime mysteries-- narrative plus illustration-- as his hook to teach the skills. He asks the question: "Is Queenie (the victim's wife) telling the truth?" Then he walks students through the deductive reasoning process.

Chart adapted from Hillocks, 2011.

We just finished two big writing units: Literary Essay (use evidence to support an idea) and Investigative Journalism (find out evidence to help you explain an idea). We also did some work with "The Historian's Process": using primary and secondary sources to draw conclusions about historical events. This Hillocks method seemed like a very natural next step to develop arguments and do even better work with primary source documents. As you know, I am a great believer in adopting/adapting good ideas.

My co-teacher and I decided that the crime mystery in Hillocks' chapter would not be a good fit for our community. Besides, I like practicing skills on things that are actually part of the curriculum; it's a two-for-one kind of a thing. So we decided to use the primary and secondary source materials from our next Social Studies chapter, Life in the Colonies (US Through Industrialism, TCI, 2011) as the texts to use for learning deductive reasoning skills.

The textbook activity directions say: "Acting as investigative journalists, you and your partner will investigate life in the American colonies. You will travel to eight places to examine primary and secondary sources and uncover the truth about what life was really like in the colonies." Each "place" has a visual and a written document, and a "headline" (fictionally) published in the English press about what life was like in the colonies.

To introduce the students to Hillocks' method, I will show them a 3-minute clip from the BBC show Sherlock, in which Sherlock Holmes, "consulting detective", explains to his new room mate, Dr. John Watson, how he knew so much about him when they first met. In his explanation, Sherlock names the detail he noticed (for example, Watson's haircut and stance), explains why it is important (suggests time in the military), and draws a conclusion (combined with his tan line, it could only mean he was serving overseas: in Afghanistan or Iraq). This engaging clip, combined with their recent work as "investigative journalists" and "historians", will lead us into the day's work.

Using the Gradual Release of Responsibility method (basically, workshop minilessons), I constructed a slideshow so that I could model the technique, have students try it out with my guidance, and eventually release them to do the work on their own. With each source and using the form above, students have to find evidence, the rule (why the evidence is important), and draw a conclusion about how accurate the (fake) English headline is. Students will need 3-5 pieces of evidence before they can confidently "prove" that the headline is either true or false. I will go through at least one visual and one written source to model/practice. Here is a sample visual slide:

Image by Janet Pohl adapted from TCI, 2011 and G. Hillocks, Jr.

The important part of this process, and what has been missing from my previous instruction, is the "rule" (or "warrant"). Students were giving evidence without explaining why it was important or how it proved anything. In their literary essays, we did some work on this using sentence starters like "This illustrates...", "This shows...", "This is important because...", "This connects to .... because...", and "Consequently...". If students can transfer some of that language and thinking into their Social Studies debate skills, their debates will be much better. So will their constructed answers on tests, and on future essays.

The next part of this process will be to teach them how to prove their point with logic, and, even more difficult, how to pick apart someone else's argument. But that's for another blog.