2nd hour fishbowl #2 over pgs. 55-end of chapter 10 of A Long Way Gone: Tuesday, November 29

Good morning! I'm looking forward to a great discussion of A Long Way Gone today.

It sounded like we had conflicting feelings about Coveritlive versus using Blogger to capture our thinking.  

To honor both parties, today we'll use Blogger.  We'll move back to Coveritlive for fishbowl #3.

To earn full credit for your posts today, be sure to...

• Carefully proofread your work.

• Contextualize your questions with cited quotes and defend your claims with passages from the text as well.  

Here are a couple of great example of posts: 

Ben wrote, "Both the Kite Runner and A Long Way Gone start the book off with the protagonist doing mundane and normal things, The Kite Runner having Hassan and Amir hanging out in the tree and A Long Way Gone having Ishmael walking to his grandmother's house (Pg 7-8). Then they both begin to escalate, Long Way Gone a bit faster than the Kite runner which took a few chapters. Why do you think Ishmael Beah jumped so quickly to action?"

And Daniel said, "On page 20 the author says that his memories 'are an important part of what my life is; who I am now,' even though he also says that he regrets his past and actions and wishes it could go away. I made a connection between TKR and this part of the book because obviously both Amir and Ismael's childhood pasts affect their adult life. It seemed that in TKR that all of Amir's memories and regrets were negative and he wanted them gone, whereas in A Long Way Gone it seems that the author in a way embraces his past and accepts that it is a large part of what his life is like now. What are your thoughts on this?

Daniel and Ben both have grammatically sound, well-developed questions that are thoughtfully contextualized with passages from text.  

Happy posting!

1st hour fishbowl #2: pgs 55-the end of chapter 10 of A Long Way Gone

Morning, ladies.  Looking forward to a great second discussion of A Long Way Gone.

If you're using the blog to show me your thinking, to earn full credit, please be sure you...

• Use the "@" symbol to make it clear to whom your comment or question is addressed, for example, "@Susie..."
• Carefully proofread your work.
• Include a quote to contextualize your questions or support your claims.  In other words, please include a quote with each post you make.  
• Are active throughout the discussion's duration.

Live Blog 1st hour fishbowl #2 over A Long Way Gone: pgs. 55-end of chapter 10

1st hour fishbowl #1, pages 1-54 of A Long Way Gone: Friday, November 18

Live Blog 1st hour fishbowl #1 for A Long Way Gone, pages 1-54: Friday, 11/18

 

2nd hour fishbowl #1 for A Long Way Gone, pages 1-54: Friday, November 18

Live Blog 2nd hour fishbowl #1 Fri 11/18: p.1-54 of A Long Way Gone

 

Second hour's fishbowl #4: the end of The Kite Runner

Good morning!  Looking forward to a great last discussion of The Kite Runner.

A few pieces of feedback from our last fishbowl & outer circle blog...

Make it clear to whom you're replying:  be sure to use the comment threading feature so it's clear to whom you're replying.  If you're replying to a comment or question from the inner circle, indicate that with a phrase such as "(insert name here) in the inner circle asked...and I thought..."

Proofread.  Because, hey, it's English class.  Be sure your comments indicate learning professionalism.

Consistently participate.  Aim for at least 3, well-developed comments throughout the course of discussion if you wish to earn full credit for your outer circle responses.

Incorporate quotes.    With each comment or question, come back to the text, defending your claim or contextualizing your question.

First hour fishbowl #4: the end of The Kite Runner

Morning, ladies!  Looking forward to a great last discussion of The Kite Runner.

Please be sure to use the comment threading feature to make it clear to what you're responding, or, if you're responding to a comment or question in the inner circle, make that evident with a sentence starter such as "(insert name here) asked...and I think..."

Continue linking your thinking to text, but work on fluid incorporation of quotes by leading in, introducing the speaker and the context in which a quote is spoken; in places, relationship between claim or question and quote is unclear.  Also, cite the page number that your quote came from so your reader can refer back to it if she needs more context.  Lastly, challenge yourself to choose a quote that supports your claim or contextualizes your question versus just summarizing plot.

Here are a couple of examples of effective posts:

Skylar asked, "What do you think happened to Sohrab? 'Later, they said I was still screaming when the ambulance arrived.' From the context clues we know something happened to cause this sort of reaction. Could it really be super bad or do you think that maybe Amir was overreacting?"


And Jerrica commented, "I don't think that Amir sees himself as Assef because Assef took things to the extreme. He sexually assaulted children. When Amir was asked if he'd ever tried it from Assef in Chapter 22 on page 285 Amir responded 'That's disgusting'".