Yep, give me an assignment that I'm not in love with and I procrastinate just like the students do.
I finally sat and read the first three chapters this weekend. Just read. Didn't focus on curriculum or vocabulary or anything but getting the gist of the book.
I think this was a good point to carry in for the actually lesson planning of this unit. If the students are expected to focus on the vocabulary and decoding and understanding every single word then you will have students who will give up.
My first recommendation is to to read this book aloud to the class. Let them hear you occasionally pause and work to decode a word - it teaches them you are human too. Book on tape is fine, and helpful on a day where you just need to get caught up on something else, but reading to them is an option I hope you consider.
In Chapter 3 Scout has a run in with her teacher about reading. Her teacher is less than thrilled that she has been reading with Atticus and wants her to stop reading with him so she can "undo the damage". Scout doesn't remember learning to read, she doesn't know how she knows the vocabulary she does - she's just absorbed it through the years.
In the opening of this book, I'm not sure I would focus on anything other than hooking the students into the story. How excited would they be if you left out the vocab? It's just a thought.
As I'm letting thoughts of HOW to hook them into the story rumble around in my head, my original idea was to make the comparison between the social structure in a high school and the social structure in a small town. However, this gets dicey when considering the race issues in the book. Do you have a group who can tackle the comparison of how African Americans were automatically the lower class with whatever group your students perceive to be the lower class in the high school structure today? Would they understand the nuances that you were NOT saying that African Americans are automatically lower class today? I like the idea of comparing small towns to high schools - especially since there are many small towns with a smaller population than a suburban high school - but the comparison of social class in TKAM to today's high school is one that would really depend on your comfort level as a teacher and the make up of your student's personalities and the general group dynamic.
Off to read more!
