NCTE Series Response # 2

As the book progresses, we find that each chapter can be used to guide us through teaching JLC through various means. Chapter 4 centers around meeting the challenges of teaching JLC. One writing prompt asks students to complete a well-developed essay on the conflict-filled connection between three mothers and their daughters. Although the prompt has students examining one of the major themes of the novel, how can we shape this question so that it also involves the personal experiences of the student? How does this help or hinder the reading of the novel? Would you change the prompt or keep it as is? Why or why not?

NCTE Series Response #1

The first few pages and chapters of the book have yet to offer us anything of real substance, but the writing assignment about Tan's "Five Writing Tips" is worth some attention. The authors explain that they gave their Advanced Placement and Creative Writing classes a final exam that required students to discuss Tan's "Five Writing Tips" and their own writing processes. Interesting to note that they never mentioned giving an exam focused on such a personal response to their regular English 10 or English 11 classes. How often do teachers give special privileges to advanced students? Where else do we see this outside of school? What do you think?

Uploading video...

If you are having trouble uploading your Vlog, or other videos, try first to upload them to YouTube. Your Google account can be linked to YouTube, therefore all you have to do is enter the website and upload your Vlog or video (you can even make the video private if you are worried about the world seeing you face-to-face). Once the video has been uploaded to YouTube, you will be provided with an embed code. Copy this code and paste it in your post using the "Edit HTML" tab in the corner of the text box. Easy to do, and very useful!

Joy Luck Club Post 7: Zines

Post 7: For our final response to The Joy Luck Club, we are going to create zines centered around issues and themes from the book that we think would fit into future units of inquiry.Go back into past responses and reread some of your favorite passages using the lenses discussed in class on Monday. This commentary or criticism (how the text is informing your inquiry) will be the basis for your zine. Use images, sound, text - whatever you want to get your message across.

This will give each of us an opportunity to explore other multimodal tools such as Glogster, Prezi, or even Comic Life.

Here is a Glog from LAI 517 (Tim)...

Joy Luck Club Post 6: Vlog

Post 6: (Before you start the end of the book) Pick a character from the story and create a piece of writing that they would write in their journal or diary. Start with a specific event in the story, but also add events, issues, characters that we were not told about. In your post try and address the issues you believe the character is thinking about and dealing with that we may not have been told about in the story. Record video of this piece as if the character were reading it and post it to the blog as a v-log. Your group members can comment on your post as characters from the story as well.

Schedule

Here is the schedule for the remainder of the book, responses due by midnight on the due date...


Post 4: pp. 102-165 Response due: 2/20/11

Post 5: pp. 166-214 Response due: 2/27/11

Post 6: Vlog Response due: 3/6/11

Post 7: pp. 215-END Response due: 3/13/11

***Don't forget that the mid-term is due 3/21/11

Joy Luck Club Post 5: Voice Thread

Post 5: (Chapters 8 – 10, pages 80-120) As you read the next three chapters, pick specific lines to respond to. What lines did you like or dislike the most from each chapter? Why? Do you think these lines are important to the overall development of the story? Do you have any problems with the way race, class or gender is being portrayed here? Do you think these lines relate at all to your life? Why did you pick them? What do they mean to you?

Use these lines to create a found poem you feel relates to the big critical issues in the story, post the poem to the blog – record it and upload it to the blog so blog members can listen to it as well. You should try using voice thread for this activity