Today you are going to learn how to record and then create a post with a podcast in it. This will be practice so that next week you will be able to record your third grade buddy when he or she interviews you. Today you will be taught by Ms. Nickles how to do this.
Once you understand what to do, get started — do a brief recording of yourself telling about your Pilgrlm story. It can be in the voice of your character, it could be a piece of your interview, or the beginning of your story. That is up to you. Then this will be embedded into a blog post about this project.
I am coming to save your friend’s life, and my own.
I must ask two favors. First, you must write me a letter.
As you know, that is from the mysterious first note found by Miranda in Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me, the amazing book I just finished reading to you. It was very cool to sneak peaks at your faces yesterday as I read aloud the last part — you were absolutely riveted as all the different threads were tied up. And so today it is your turn — to write your own letters about this remarkable book — on your blogs. My hope is that you will all write thoughtful and interesting ones that I can mention on my blog so that others interested in how children respond to the book will come to see and read them (and, hopefully, comment as well).
First of all, a fun tidbit. The book takes place, as you know, in 1979 and the television show, $20,000 Pyramid plays a major part in the story. Go here to see a clip of the original show and then come back….
Back? Good. Now here are a few ideas of things to consider for your blog post —we’ll add a few more today as well.
- The title — what do you think of it? Would there be a better one? (One person I know suggested The Laughing Man —what do you think of that?)
- The cover — some don’t like it. Do you? Do you want to draw a better one and post it on your blog? Explain why it is what it is.
- Chapter titles are mostly “Things that…” which is the way to do your answer for The $20,000 Pyramid.
- How did you feel about it being SO mysterious? Were you able to wait until all became clear?
- Veil metaphor — when was it lifted for you?
- Wrinkle in Time
- For kids who are comfortable with many different threads and things going on all at once.
Starting today you are going to do a series of posts called “All About Alice” in which you will document your work with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Bloggers do this often. These are sort of like columns in magazines or newspapers. Sometimes a blogger will do this weekly so yours will be on Tuesday, right?Now let’s look at one of my series at my blog called “Teaching with Blogs.” After that you will be ready to begin your own series. (Later on you might want to even put in sketches, storyboards, and such to illustrate these posts. Hey — you might even want to do a little interview of your partner as a podcast!)Your first post should have the title, “All About Alice: What I Did First.”In the post I hope you will describe what we have done with Alice so far.
Yesterday Ms. Feldman gave you a great overview of comics and I think you are now ready to begin your own. Here’s what you will need to do:
- Make a list of ten “scenes” (events) for your comic chapter. (If you have two chapters, you can have up to twenty scenes.)
- Write the text to go with these scenes. You can use text from the actual book (here it is online) or rewrite it. Up to you.
- Do the art for your scenes. You may want to make backgrounds for each scene separately from the characters. You also may want to reuse some of these for the different scenes.
- Scan in all the art.
- Do a story board.
- When you have everything ready you will create a comic using Comic Life.
- And lastly we will combine them in a series of pages for our class blog!
In preparation for your Alice comics, we discussed the format of the graphic novel. A graphic novel is a novel that uses images and words to tell a story. Someone added, “It is almost like a movie split into several parts.”
Similarities between a regular novel and a graphic novel:
- Both tell a (fictional or non-fictional) story
- Both have characters (like actors in a movie)
- Both have a plot and a setting
- Most of the time, they both have words
- Both have creators
Differences:
- Graphic novels use pictures!
- Graphic novels use captions to describe what is happening (settings, background information, or to help express the passage of time).
- They also use speech bubbles when characters are speaking to one another.
- Thought bubbles communicate characters’ ideas.
- Sometimes, speech bubbles are drawn in a way to represent emotions, like surprise, anger, excitement. Sometimes different kinds of speech bubbles are always used with the same characters to represent their personalities. The size, shape, and design of bubbles help to communicate emotions and traits.
- You can show sound effects with images (and words) in a graphic novel.
- Different colors can also convey emotion.
- Pictures and words are enclosed into panels, which may take many forms and sizes. The space between the panels is called the gutter.
- We looked at several examples of how graphic novels mark the passage of time and motion.
- We also examined how to represent the five senses and emotion.
Published on
March 12, 2009 in
Pilgrims.
Now that you are expert translators of this very old publication of 1620, each of you is going to illustrate a small section of this journal. You have Pilgrim Voices, a book where the creators have carefully combined parts of Mourt’s Relation and On Plymouth Plantation (William Bradford’s memoirs and the other major source about the Pilgrims) and illustrated it beautifully, They researched the illustrations from primary sources and so you can use them as secondary sources for your own. Above is the first page of Mourt’s Relation that we translated together yesterday.
Now that you’ve translated several more pages you are read to try something else. Each of you has been given one quote to illustrate. Be sure to write the quote on the drawing and where it is from. For example:
“… there was the greatest store of fowle we euer saw.” (Mourt’s Relation)
You can also see what some of a previous house did here, here, here and here.
Once you have finished your drawing (and had it checked by me) please scan it and put it on your blog. (You should know how to do this, but if you forgot go here for reminders.)
Here are your assignments:
Here are the sections (but they are from a version with the corrected spelling/capitals so use the one we annotated so you can get that old spelling!)
- Wednesday, the sixth of September, the winds coming east north east, a fine small gale, we loosed from Plymouth, having been kindly entertained and courteously used by divers friends there dwelling. (jl)
- and after many difficulties in boisterous storms,
- by God’s providence, upon the ninth of November following, by break of the day we espied land which was deemed to be Cape Cod, and so afterward it proved. (ar)
- And the appearance of it much comforted us, especially seeing so goodly a land, and wooded to the brink of the sea. (pm)
- It caused us to rejoice together, and praise God that had given us once again to see land. (pm)
- And thus we made our course south south west, purposing to go to a river ten leagues to the south of the Cape (db)
- but at night the wind being contrary, we put round again for the bay of Cape Cod; and upon the 11th of November we came to an anchor
- the bay, which is a good harbor and pleasant bay, circled round, except in the entrance which is about four miles over from land to land, (vsf)
- compassed about to the very sea with oaks, pines, juniper, sassafras, and other sweet wood (sh)
- it is a harbor wherein a thousand sail of ships may safely ride (ap)
- there we relieved ourselves with wood and water, and refreshed our people (ds)
- our shallop was fitted to coast the bay, to search for a habitation (zt)
- there was the greatest store of fowl that ever we saw (sp)
- And every day we saw whales playing hard by us, of which in that place, if we had instruments and means to take them, we might have made a very rich return, which to our great grief we wanted. (am)
- For cod we assayed, but found none, there is good store, no doubt, in their season.
- Neither got we any fish all the time we lay there, but some few little ones on the shore. (nl)
- We found great mussels, and very fat and full of sea-pearl, but we could not eat them, for they made us all sick that did eat, as well sailors as passengers; they caused to cast and scour, but they were soon well again. (dw)
- The bay is so round and circling, that before we could come to anchor we went round all the points of the compass. We could not come near the shore by three quarters of an English mile, because of shallow water, which was a great prejudice to us, for our people going on shore were forced to wade a bow shot or two in going a-land, which caused many to get colds and coughs, for it was nigh times freezing cold weather.
- This day before we came to harbor, observing some not well affected to unity and concord, but gave some appearance of faction, it was thought good there should be an association and agreement that we should combine together in one body, and to submit to such government and governors as we should by common consent agree to make and choose (hf)
On the 15th of December they weighed anchor to go to the place they
had discovered, and came within two leagues of it, but were fain to bear
up again, but the 16th day, the wind came fair, and they arrived safe in
this harbor. And afterwards took a better view of the place, and resolved
where to pitch their dwelling; and the 25th day began to erect the first house
for common use to receive them and their goods.
William Bradford
Governor
Plymouth Plantation
We Americans all know about the Pilgrims. Weren’t they those people in the funny hats who left England and then had a big feast with the Indians? With lots of turkey and pumpkin pie? Those Pilgrims? Those Indians? That celebration? That story?
Well, um, no. In this unit you are going to be serious historians, finding about the real Pilgrims behind the myth (and they are nothing like the cartoon ones above). The Pilgrims were immigrants with similar reasons for coming to America that people still have today. You have already looked closely at contemporary immigration by way of your oral history project. You created thoughtful questions for your subject about his or her immigration experiences and crafted the resulting interview into a picture book. Now you are going to attempt to do something similar with a real person from over 250 years ago! Since the Pilgrims aren’t here to interview, you will have to get your information some other way. Learning ways to do that will be a major part of your work in this assignment. As well, you will become a Pilgrim expert, ready to travel back in time to visit Plimoth Plantation itself!
So to begin, what do you already know about these folks?
- They came on two ships but one sank.
- They came to the East coast of America.
- When they were on the Mayflower, they wouldn’t eat during the day b/c of bugs on the food.
- They was a great sickness that killed 42 of the Pilgrims.
- They dressed differently than we do.
- They didn’t only wear black; they wore purple and brown clothes.
- At first, they thought the Indians were savages.
- They started Thanksgiving.
- Indians and Pilgrims taught each other things.
- At first, Indians and people living their didn’t like the immigrants.
- They had a big peace with the Indians and a feast.
- There was a battle w/ the Indians when they first arrived.
- They landed close to Massachusetts.
- At first, the Pilgrims had trouble growing crops like corn.
- The first Indian who came to the colony was Samoset.
- There is something called Plymouth Rock.
- The Indians taught the Pilgrims to use fish in their planting.
We’ve been doing a lot of talking recently about historical fiction. For example, you read my historical fiction version of Margru’s story. We’ve also read a lot of picture books about forced immigration that are historical fiction, say Veronica Chambers’ Amistad Rising. What make these books good historical fiction?
You have all just read what I consider to be good works of historical fiction. For your next blog post you will be writing about why they are. But in order to do so you need to first think about what elements are necessary for a work of historical fiction to be good. So let’s make a list here. We will then look for specific quotes and/or examples from Amistad Rising to prove these points and write a blog post using this information to explain just how and why Amistad Rising is a good work of historical fiction. You can then use the same process to write your own blog post tomorrow.
RUBRIC FOR GOOD HISTORICAL FICTION
HISTORICAL ELEMENTS:
- Includes authentic language (from the time/place) – might include some words in foreign language
- references real places, ex. New London, New Haven, etc.
- references real people, ex. John Quincy Adams
- references authentic objects, belongings, clothing, etc. – ex. sugar cane knives
- references specific dates, ex. 1839
- includes quotation from person of the time
- authentic ways of daily life based on research
FICTIONAL ELEMENTS:
- includes description using several senses
- might include a theme
- uses poetic devices ex. alliteration
- uses figurative language ex. metaphors, similes
- includes a range of emotions
- style – format (journal, letters, story)
- point of view -first, second or third person “Stand here with me…”
- has interesting plot development
- includes great characters you care about
- might include believable dialogue
Veronica Chambers’ fictionalized telling of a true event in Amistad Rising is a fine example of historical fiction. In this case, Chambers has mostly stuck with the facts, embellishing them with some imagined speeches and thoughts. She begins the story very compellingly asking the reader to imagine him/herself back in 1839 when the story took place. “Stand here with me on the shores of New London, Connecticut. Feel the cool breezes on your face. Feel the dirt on your feet; this land is far from ordinary.” (1) Her facts are carefully researched. For example, she writes of John Quincy Adams defending the captives. Her use of figurative language is excellent as in the following passage: “Savoring the word, he let it melt like sugar on his tongue.” (20) For those interested in an introduction to the Amistad story, I would recommend this book.
So now, it is your turn. Write a good post about the work of historical fiction you read. It must have at least one paragraph, three reasons and examples, and a wrapping-up sentence. Then read it over, revise as necessary, proofread (and spell check), and then when it feels ready — publish!
