To reinforce the interdisciplinary unit theme of individual worth, this lesson first synthesized the texts we looked at to present an overarching feature: the most obvious indications of characters and animals' recognition of individual value emerged when they were faced with death. In Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder," it took a squashed butterfly for Eckels to understand the individual value of everything in the universe - from a "one particular mouse" to a caveman. In Williams's "The Girls," Father Snow's deep sorrow for his deceased lover exposed how much he valued Donny. Mommy and Daddy also start to drift toward beliefs in individual worth through their guilt over their hit-and-run victim. In a similar fashion to Father Snow, death brings elephants' belief in the value of their deceased ancestors to the surface. They visit the corpses, and even the bones, over and over again. In the characters' and animals' death-related displays of individual worth, they pose a question: if it often takes death for us to see the true depth of individual worth - and to show our belief in individual worth - do we recognize and appreciate individual value too late? In an attempt to combat this delayed expression of individual worth, we designed a bulletin board, "We are Just Any Expendable Students!," on which we all we all summarized our self-perceptions of our individual worth. We also used the bulletin board border to summarize the individual worth of the species you are studying for your final research projects in science class, as we often recognize species' value on when the threat of their extinction or endangerment lurks. Again, appreciation emerges only in the face of loss. We also received the opportunity to read our peers' chaos theory short stories at the end of class.
Within Text Comprehension &
Text-to-Text Connections After finishing Joy Williams's "The Girls" and Ezra Pound's "Portrait d'une Femme," we revisited the central cause and effect at play in Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" by developing a whole-class summary of the importance of Excels's buttery. Then we discussed the implications of the butterfly on the question of interconnectedness and its value: does the butterfly's global importance prove we are interconnected, for better or for worse? The nameless woman and Mommy and Daddy in the other aforementioned texts were hurt by human interconnectedness, just like Time Safari, Inc. So do the stories suggest that we are interconnected despite whether we want to be or not? |
"Eventually, it all boils down to this: fifty-nine million years later a caveman, one of a dozen on the entire world, goes hunting wild board or saber-toothed tigers. But you, my friend, have stepped on all the tigers in that region. By stepping on one single mouse. So the caveman starves. And the caveman, please note, is not just any expendable man, no! He is an entire future nation...Destroy this one man, and you destroy a race, a people, an entire history of life.
It is comparable to slaying some of Adam's grandchildren" (74).
Text-To-Self Connections
We then returned to the text for a close reading of Travis's vehement speech to Eckels. Using context clues in a Think-Pair-Share activity, we discussed what Travis meant when he said that the caveman was "not just any expendable man." Then we reflected on the generalizability of his statement to ourselves, as individual students. To do this, we wrote a one-sentence summary of our self-perceived worth to this world. To conquer writer's block, the following are some questions we considered: How do we impact our families now? How would the unfulfillment of our current career aspirations affect the future? In that sense, what would the future be missing if we weren't a part of it? |
Classroom Bulletin Board:
Text-to-World (a.k.a. Text-to-Biology Unit) Connections: Bulletin Board Border
Since your science class's two case studies on keystone species - bees and elephants - are real-life "chaos theory" catalysts that parallel the fictitious example in Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder," we created "I Matter..." cards for them. We approached them as summary writing exercises. Students grouped together based on which animal they studies firsthand in their science class, and the several small groups for each of the two species came up with their own "I Matter" statement based on their science class research. Consider the largest effect of the species' decline or loss to determine the global reason why the species matters. Students were given blank templates of either a bee or elephant on which to record their one-sentence summaries. Each group shared their summary before stapling it to the border of the bulletin board. Examples are provided below.
These bee and elephant cards are only the start of the "I am NOT just any expendable species!" bulletin board border. They are group practice for future independent creation. The border will officially be completed at the end of this interdisciplinary unit's research project, which consists of three parts: a research essay in the form of a persuasive letter, a cnservation poster, and an "I Matter..." summary card for your chosen endangered species. Therefore, you will add your species's "I Matter..." cards (which can either be completed with an online or hand-drawn image) to the English classroom's bulletin board border. They function as quick-glance summaries of your entire research project.
Ideally, because of its cross-curricular components, this would be compiled as a hallway bulletin board if access to such is available. Confining it to the English classroom, although it is the Plan B option, might limit students' thinking about its content and its applicability to both disciplines.
Collaborative Blog Short Stories
LAPTOP SHARING (with peer feedback 2 STARS: 1 WISH comment cards) Since your collaborative online writing has concluded, laptops will be set up around the room will each group's story uploaded. Before everyone walks around and chooses which two (2) they want to read, each group will, in a short oral presentation, summarize their story to "hook" their classmates and encourage them to pick theirs to read. Since you were writing for your peer audience in mind, each group will receive individual classmate feedback through comment cards. The comment cards will give you an opportunity to share your thoughts while holding you accountable during the reading session. You do not need to write your name on your comment cards. For each short story, record its title, two compliments, and one suggestion. More specific directions are available on the worksheet to the right. Please keep STARS and WISHES appropriate and constructive. You will be splitting the sheets in half and submitting them to each group after the allotted period of time to browse and read. |
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