4PA will start the week with a picture book by Eve Bunting titled The Terrible Things. This story is an allegory, or a story that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning or moral. This tale is about the Holocaust, but as interpreted by a bunny and other animals who are forced out of a forest. This story will lead into a short story by Issac Singer from 1980 titled "The Power of Light" about two children in Warsaw during World War Two. Our focus will be to identify the theme and better understand change.
5PA will enter the mysterious, wonderful world of Ray Bradbury this week with our first short story of his from 1954 titled "All Summer in a Day." This is a tale of a group of colonists living on Venus who only experience summer for one day every seven years. We will begin our exploration of this author using a presentation I created that shows what life was like in the United States in the 1950's, at the dawn of the space age, when Bradbury was doing his writing. The students will be annotating the text with their thoughts, and seeking answers to about 20 discussion questions we will use for our first Socratic seminar of the year.
