Opening minds…

We’ll be starting Lois Lowry’s novel, The Giver next week.   I’ve been working with my PLC (Professional Learning Community) on how to better weave the MCA-II prep into our existing curriculum.  The MCAs have what is called a constructive response type of question.   It’s like an essay question, but the students are not required to write an answer out.  They can  make a T-Chart, a bulleted list, a Venn Diagram, a mind map (or story map or web) for their answer.   However, we’re trying to get them to not only do that but then also write a statement tying it all together to show that they know how all the information in the answer interconnects.  Easy task, right!   LOL!

I struggled with whether or not to read this story in my classes, but this story has sparked some amazing conversations!   My students have reading and writing disaabilities, and many of them could really relate with Charlie (before the experiment).  As the story goes on, the students raised many questions about the experiment and the underlying storylines.

We’re listening to the story on CD as it is difficult to read the progress reports when Charlie has difficulty spelling.

After the story, we’ll be watching the movie, Awakenings and comparing and contrasting the characters from the story to the ones in the movie.   This is a HUGE skill that will be on the MCA (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments), so it’s important that I integrate this into the existing curriculum…as just teaching “Test Prep” seems to heighten anxiety levels!