Curses and Crimes in Anthem (Day 5)

For the "Do Now" today, I will pass out students' Anthem charts and have them share their examples of Anthem Transgressions and Sins -first two rows of the chart from a previous lesson. The anthem chart appears as a resource in the application section of this lesson. I am having students share because they have been reading at the end of class periods and for homework, and this gives them an opportunity to add to their charts so that they will have the most thorough responses possible (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.9-10.1.d). I am also having students share because they they will notice some overlap in the sins and transgressions that we identified in a previous lesson and the curses and crimes that we identify and discuss today.

We will begin the application part of the lesson by having students chart curses and crimes that they have encountered in chapters 1-8 (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1).  We are charting these curses and crimes because they reveal Equality as a thoughtful individual in a collective society (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3). They also characterize the Council as a controlling entity in this society. For example, Equality created a light box. Not only was this a sin (according to the Council) because he did it by himself, but also, he stole the candle, went off by himself, and refused to tell where he had been. They do not have to find examples from all of the chapters, but I want them to at least find several examples for each of the two terms (curse and crime). Throughout our reading of the book, we have been charting these examples and our opinions of them in our Anthem chart. We can always refer back to these charts when we are discussing aspects of the text.

At the end of the lesson today, I will be introducing students to their final project for quarter 4. This project will be a book jacket, and they will need to read a fictional book independently (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.10) this quarter in order to be prepared to complete the project. I will review each panel of the project and show my students sample projects from previous years.  I discovered this project years ago, and since then have made significant adjustments to it over the years based on experience and the shift toward using the Common Core standards.

I will be sharing the SSR_Book_Jacket_instructions and rubric as well during this part of the lesson. I am providing students with a Book_Jacket_Template on which they can type or write their panels as well. I will answer questions and remind them that they need to have their books read by 5/5/2014. There will be due dates for each component of the project after 5/5, so it important that my students select a book ASAP. We will take a trip to the media center during the next class session so that they can select books to read.

I am having my students complete this project because it sums up many of the skills we have learned this year, including analyzing characters and conflicts (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.3), defining vocabulary (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.9-10.4.c), writing a book review (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.2), and analyzing a theme (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2) of their self-selected text--all in one place. In other words, in this one project, I can assess their reading and writing skills.