Rodney King & the LA riots

Today we are starting by looking at Rodney King and the LA riots.  Everyone is googling this man whose treatment changed history.  As you are watching videos and reading articles, think about the following questions:
1. Who was Rodney King, what happened to him, when and why?
2. What was the effect of the Rodney King incident being shared across the world?  What technology made this possible compared to 20 years earlier?
3. What do you think it would be like to be at a multi-racial school in Los Angeles at that time?

From being an alien to belonging

Over the past week, we have been working on our paragraphs, finishing them to the highest standard possible, and beginning our personal reading programme.  Students have been posting their posters and paragraphs on Rowdy and Junior's friendship in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian on their learning blogs.

Today we are looking at another aspect of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, the part where Junior moves schools and feels like he doesn't belong on the Reservation or at Reardon.  He feels too different from everyone else in both places. 

It's really possible that students at Grey High sometimes feel like they are alone, and too different to everyone else.  One of the times when students can feel most separate from their learning and from feeling like they belong at school is when they get referred.  Option A: Write about a time when you were in trouble at school.  What happened and how did it feel?

Another time when students feel like an alien is when they are lonely.  Sometimes people feel lonely even when they seem to have friends all around them, and sometimes people feel lonely because they have no one with them.  Option B: Write about a time when you were lonely at school.  What happened and how did it feel?

Option C: What makes it difficult to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance at Grey High?  What makes it easier?  How can we build on what we do well to make our school more welcoming?

SEXY paragraph exemplars

This document has three exemplars on it, and instructions on what to do next.  You have also been given a printed version of this document to annotate.

Paragraph writing & SOLO

Our next project is paragraph writing to show our deep understanding of the ideas about friendship in the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. 

We want to be able to describe what happens in the novel, then explain what we learn about friendship from this novel.  We then want to be able to make links to the wider world, showing how the ideas and events in this novel connect to our own wider experiences and to other novels, poems, films and current events.

Task:
1. Describe Rowdy and Junior's friendship.

2. Explain how it changes over time.

Remember to use the SEXY paragraph formula:
Statement
Example
eXplanation
whY it is important

Junior & Rowdy: the power of friendship

Now that we have finished the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, it's time to think about the important ideas in the novel.  Today we are looking at Rowdy and Junior's friendship.  There are four distinct phases in their friendship:

1. When Rowdy and Junior are at Wellpinit High School together.
2. When Junior goes to Reardon High and leaves Rowdy behind.
3. When Junior finds Rowdy behind the trees at his sister's funeral.
4. When they pick up their friendship again at the end of the novel.

A "phase" is a distinct part of the book, or a section of the book.

I have made a booklet with an extract (part of the book) from each phase of their friendship.  There are enough for one for each person.  Take your time to read these four extracts.  Then I want you to make a series of four posters, using google drawings.  For each poster, choose a key quote which shows something important about Junior and Rowdy's friendship.  Choose a colour and background images which support the quote and the idea about their friendship.

You can read all the extracts and then do all the posters, OR you can read one extract and do the poster about Rowdy and Junior's friendship in that extract, and then move on to the next extract and poster.

If you finish all four posters to a high standard (and the reading! in only one hour!), you can either write a paragraph about how Rowdy and Junior's friendship changes over time, OR you can read your own book quietly.  

Final reading: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Today we are finishing our reading of this fabulous novel.

Our next step is to check our memory on the novel with a quiz. 

Click here for today's Kahoot.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian

Over the past three weeks, we have been doing activities around the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian.  I haven't put much on the blog, sorry, but we will have more up here this week to track our learning and help with students catching up from being away.

Today we are starting with a series of questions helping us to dig deeper into recent events in the novel:
1. What do we remember about the The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian? (describe)

2. Why is Junior so unhappy? (explain)

3. What strategies to feel positive do you recommend for Junior?  (make links between our world and the novel)