All Boys, All Blogged: October 13, 2014

Focus: What does it mean to ask a great question, and how can this help me understand the opening pages of The Kite Runner?

1. Warm-up: Creating symbolic family drawings and interpreting them:

Remember when you were in kindergarten, and you were asked to draw a picture of your house and family?  Little kids, without realizing, draw in an interpretive way rather than a literal way.  For example, they may draw their dad as tall as the house because he's that important.  They might draw a floating turtle in the sky because he's in heaven. They tend to place family members in the spaces in the home where they spend the most time, and how big they draw themselves often indicates how important they feel as part of the family.

Go back to your kindergarten symbolic mind, and draw a symbolic picture of your family and home.  If your parents are divorced or one spends much time traveling, think about how you could represent that.  Think about how the size and location of people in your house represents a larger idea about the dynamics of your family relationships.

When everyone finishes, trade pictures with someone (if you feel comfortable doing so).  On the back of the drawing, write down a 3-5 sentence interpretation of this person's family based on the picture alone.  If you don't wish to trade, interpret your own drawing.

As you meet the family of The Kite Runner today and tonight when you read Chapter 2, think about how the dynamics of this family compare and contrast to yours.

2. Introducing three levels of questioning; please click HERE to read and discuss the explanation, then check out the questions below and decide if they're level one, two, or three questions.

What is a Hazara?

What does Hassan's physical's description represent about his social status?

Why do societies always need a scapegoat?

3. Distributing The Kite Runner and gathering book numbers

4. Reading the opening pages of The Kite Runner together with sticky notes or a reading journal; pausing to write, ask aloud, and discuss your level one and level two questions

HW:
1. Finish reading and annotating Chapters 1 and 2 of The Kite Runner; annotate by asking level 1 and 2 questions using sticky notes or a reading journal; when you can, try to answer some of your questions. What reading strategies can you use to understand these opening chapters?

2. Continue working on your book talk.  We will sign up on Wednesday for presentation dates.

3. There is no grammar assignment this week.