For my text vs media unit, we analyze a play (Monsters Are Due on Maple Street), a short story (All Summer in a Day), and a speech (I Have a Dream). I opened the unit with the speech because I knew I could get a huge reaction from the students with my #tlap idea. I set up the classroom as a restaurant with "whites only" and "negroes" sections. The "whites only" had table cloths, flowers/vases, candles, salt/pepper shakers, enough dictionaries so that each person in the group had their owns, and brand new package of colored pencils. The "negroes" section had plain desks, one dictionary for entire group, and used, unsharpened colored pencils.
I didn't want to break up the students based on their races so I made black and white entrance slips. I blocked the windows so they couldn't see in until they received their slip and walked through the doorway. I had a rap, Civil Rights Movement by Rhythm, Rhyme, Results playing as they entered. I printed out the lyrics, and we listened to the entire song to help gain background knowledge of the time. I also showed a video from YouTube by WatchMojo.com. I used KeepVid.com to download the video so I didn't have to worry about the Internet not working.
I cut up the speech into six different excerpts - one for each group. I taped them on to a larger piece of paper. Students put their discussion around the piece of text. Each student had a different color so that I could see who said what or defined an unknown word. With the entire class, each group shared their learning with each group member sharing their comments.
After we watched the speech and had a class discussion about which version was more powerful and why.
As we studied and read All Summer in the Day I used the Relax Melodies app on my computer and clicked on every rain and thunderstorm button. I cranked up the volume. Luckily it wasn't a super bright day outside so it really felt like a thunderstorm was happening.
I plan to think more how I can #tlap the Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.
Throughout each piece of literature, we had conversations about the different types of bullying that were shown, and students produced an essay connecting bullying all the pieces using evidence from the texts.
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