Students are wrapping up the year by reading a book in a group with four of their peers.  After each day’s reading, students in the group must complete a job on their blogs.  Each student received a paper outlining these roles, but in case they misplaced or forgot it:

Group Leader: Develop three open-ended discussion questions about today’s reading and post them on your blog.  Each of the other group members should respond to the post with their answers/thoughts on the questions.  Ex: What was going through your head when…? How did you react when…? Etc.

Summarizer:  Write a three sentence summary of the day’s reading and post onto your blog.  For bonus points, other group members can comment with an important detail that was left out.

Literary Device Locator: List 3 examples of simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration, onomatopoeia, idiom, etc. from the days reading on your blog.  For bonus points, other group members can comment with another that wasn’t included on your list that jumped out to them.

Connector: Post to your blog three connections between the day’s reading and other books/articles we’ve read this year or to quotes or warm-ups that we have talked about, or to something that has happened to you or your friends outside of school or on a tv show or in a movie you’ve seen.  For bonus points, other group members could each comment with one connection of their own.

Word Wizard: Choose three challenging words from this days reading selection and post them on your blog along with their definitions and parts of speech.   Other group members should comment with a sentence for each word.

Once their job is done, they must also comment on the group leaders blog answering the three questions there, and they must also write a sentence for each of the three words on the Word Wizard’s blog.

As we wrap up the novel “The Phantom Tollbooth” this week, students are to complete a short project using the book’s words of wisdom.  They brought home information about the project last Friday the 15th, but in case they can’t find that, their choices were:  1) creating horoscopes for each sign of the zodiac using a combination of their own predictions and the words of wisdom 2) Creating an advice column where at least three letters are written in asking advice on typical middle school problems and the advice given in response incorporates the words of wisdom from the book (two quotes per advice column), or 3) looking up a recipe for fortune cookies online and making them for the class, putting the words of wisdom from the book inside the cookies as the fortunes.

These projects are due Friday, May 22.  No late fortune cookie projects will be accepted- the plan is that students can share their cookies with the class Friday as we watch the video version of the book.

Samples of words of wisdom from the book include:  “Things which are equally bad are also equally good.  Try to look on the bright side of things.”  “You can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and still come out completely dry.”  “There is a lot to see everywhere if you only keep your eyes open.”  “The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what’s in between.”  “What a dull place the world would be without color.”

Here is a link to a great article about the book we’ve been enjoying:

http://www.bustle.com/articles/29606-23-ways-the-phantom-tollbooth-prepared-us-for-adulthood

Good luck to students as they complete their last round of MCAS testing this Wednesday and Thursday in the subject of Math.  Due to these assessments, there is no homework Tuesday or Wednesday.  Students should get adequate rest and be sure to eat a breakfast that will hold them through the morning testing hours.

We are currently half way through our class novel, The Phantom Tollbooth.  Students will complete a project on the book, using the words of wisdom that we collected throughout the chapters.  Students have the choice of 1) creating horoscopes for each sign of the zodiac using a combination of their own predictions and the words of wisdom 2) Creating an advice column where at least three letters are written in asking advice on typical middle school problems and the advice given in response incorporates the words of wisdom from the book, or 3) looking up a recipe for fortune cookies online and making them for the class, putting the words of wisdom from the book inside the cookies as the fortunes.   These projects will be due Firday, May 22.

Final book reviews for the year should be in by June 5.