First period looked at the various rites of passage in The Giver and worked together to come up with an answer to the day’s essential question, “What is a rite of passage.”

Second period finished up Lord of the Flies. We began working on two trials that will be held Monday the next time we’ll have class together.

Jack's Defense

In separate trials, we’ll be trying Ralph and Jack for the death of Simon. Those who chose to work on Jack’s case will receive a bit of extra credit, as they had no materials to begin with.

Ralph's Defense Dream Team

Prosecution At Work

Initially, I only planned on the trial for Ralph, but we talked as a class and decided to do two trials, with the understanding that those working Jack’s trial — especially the defense — would have a much harder assignment.

Dream Team II

Prosecution Team for Ralph

“Defending Jack is a little like defending Osama bin Laden,” said one of Jack’s attorneys to me. Of course, the truly difficult defendant from Lord of the Flies would be Roger.

Prosecution and Defense for Jack

Fourth and sixth periods returned to Flowers for Algernon. We took a break from reading to watch a bit of the film version, Charlie.

We’ll be having ITBS testing next week, so theoretically we won’t have class for first and second periods until next Thursday. I’m hoping we can, as a team, make some adjustments so that we’ll have class with first and second periods at some point during that three-day testing block.

Homework

• First period: read chapters 9-11 of The Giver.
• Second period:
  • finish up preparation for trial;
  • answer essay question on the forum.
• Fourth and sixth periods:
  • re-read Charlie’s first diary entry;
  • correct the spelling and punctuation mistakes..