Welcome back bloggers!
Long time no see! Quite a lot has changed since the last term, so lets get right into all of it!
For this term Mrs Lee’s reading group is doing something a little different from last term. As instead of doing create tasks, this term we will be focusing on something called novel studies. Like the name suggests we had to choose a novel and we study the themes of the book and answer questions as we go along.
For the novel we had two options, both by Alan Gratz, Refugee and Two degrees. I will not be explaining the theme of two degrees because, one my blog post will become a novel in itself if I try and two because there are plenty of others who are doing this book and would love someone to check their posts!
Either way the overarching theme of Refugee is exactly what you would get from the title, three kids in three different points of history but they all have one thing in common, they all need to flee the country they are living in for one reason or another. Making the three of them refugees.
But there is much more to the characters than what meets the eye so lets take a deeper dive into all of three them!
The first character that we are introduced to is called Josef. He is a Jew living in Germany during the Holocaust ( the 1930s). He and his family are trying to board a ship to America to escape the threat of a concentration camp and Hitler. In the story so far, Josef made the decision to sneak out of the train compartment made for Jews and finds himself in trouble with Hitler Youth.
The second character we meet in the text is named Isabel. She was living in Cuba during the time period 1994 or more commonly called “The Cuban Rafter Crisis” The country is under dictatorship and in dire need of food and other supplies such as gasoline and medicine. Being fed up with the condition of Cuba, Isabel’s father decided to escape Cuba by a boat to Miami as for a short amount of time, Fidel Castro, the prime minster and president allowed all who wished to flee to do so. Isabel is now on the sea along with their neighbors, Ivan and his father, her own family ( mother, father, grandfather and unborn sister), Luis and his girlfriend.
For the final character we meet in the novel is called Mahmoud. He lived in Syria during the time period of 2015. He and his family (mother, father and brother) flee Syria and hope to make it to Turkey. Syria is in a state of civil war aznd dictatorship. With his apartment blown up by a bomb that is the last straw for him and his family. They take all that they can, money, legal documents and many other supplies they could save from the wreckage that was once their home and begin the 10 day trek to Turkey. They have made it to Turkey at this point in time and are living in the refugee camps built by Turkish soldiers.
Wow that was a lot! I know I am reading a novel. but with how detailed these characters are I may have to write one 😅
Of course it doesn’t help that we are required to retell all of it…
Now that you have the gist of the novel I am reading, it’s about time I told you about the create tasks that go along with it! And yes, we are still doing create tasks, except they are five times harder and take about one whole reading session to even come remotely close to completing them… Yay…. Oh and we have no WALT, so don’t be surprised when there isn’t one.
Either way we only have two create tasks to do so I might as well explain them both.
The first create task that I was forced to do was the following, write a fact file on one of the characters from the novel ( I did Isabel, you remember her, right?) , include everything that you have read up to that point (pg 92) this includes: the crisis they are living through, their family and how you would describe them…. Do you see why I didn’t finish my blog last week??
Anyway I did this create task on Canva, so without further ado here is my fact file about Isabel!
This task took a while purely because I had to rummage through the book way too many times to find the tiniest bit of information. The same thing goes for searching things up five times in a row.
The second create task we did went like this, Use Bloom’s Cards (a set of slideshows containing questions relating to our novel. The questions also had points attached, 1 to 6, you’ll see why soon enough.) to earn 10 points or above.(see where the points come in?) Make sure to explain your answers in detail.
I did this create task in a set of slides and earned exactly 10 points
I don’t think that create task needs anymore explaining so here it is!
This create task lacked the element of difference and creativity in my opinion as the questions were mostly made for books that are much different to Refugee or require me to read the whole novel, something I am very much not allowed to do.
So here we are at last, the end of my giant blog post! This post took quite some time to make so please feel free to type out a comment and let me know if you liked it! Or to point out what I did wrong and or what I missed. Both are very likely to occur. So here is the last thing I need to do..
Reflection
This concept is still very much foreign to me so it will take some getting used to. Although the only thing I have to say about the system as of yet is the reciprocal reading. If you don’t know reciprocal reading is when me and the rest of my group who are reading the same novel as me (Refugee) meet up and discuss a few pages of the book. Not only do I now find it a small waste of time, I also have to deal with others going slower, being silly or just plain annoying. That is also the reason why I barely finished this blog post as I had an even smaller amount of time to complete not only the post but the create tasks as well.
That is all from me bloggers!
I know that is a huge post but I just had to cram everything in here. I promise that the next posts that will follow this one will not be anywhere as big.
Anyway bloggers remember,
Stay Sharp!
Signed: Ria
Ps: the word count on this post is more than 1160. Oh gosh….
