| So what is all this about, anyway? |
| Without spoiling it too much for future 8th graders who have yet to experience it, here's some information: Students of mine in 8th grade can expect some enjoyable units in Reading class, and this section of the web site is devoted to something that grew out of a particular Reading unit. Most people know that each 8th grade so far has read Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Former students refer to this whole affair as the DragonLance Unit, which you can read about in a different portion of this site. Reading the novel (400+ pages) is the first main requirement. [Some students have read it prior to 8th grade and that's fine, I guess, but I don't recommend it; in addition to the early readers possibly spoiling the story for other students who want to read it (which I hate, and which I punish students for when I catch it), there are numerous quizzes that accompany every few chapters. Most won't remember enough of the story to do well on them, so they just wind up having to read it all over again in 8th grade anyway. Got that, students of mine?] The whole feel of the unit changed when I invented the second portion, called the Character Assignments. Comprised of writing, drawing, mathematics, mapmaking, problem-solving and teamwork (plus some really late nights of homework!), it involves students like never before and nothing else. Part of it, though, requires students to invent alter-egos for themselves, in the spirit of the novel and its characters. They make up cool-sounding names for themselves and get the chance to use their writing skills quite a bit to develop this persona. By the time this unit is complete, students have co-created and written their own combined stories. They have produced their own myth, so to speak. After the Class of 2000 went through it (although the Class of 1999 actually pioneered the experience and did quite well also), I got the idea to use my cool 3D computer software and try depicting some of the imaginary characters that the students invented. Because they themselves "were" the characters (all stories were written in First Person), this meant trying to fashion figures that resembled the students after whom they were modeled. This of course is more difficult to do than one might think. I can't say that any one of them so far truly looks like any student of mine, but there is, you might say, a vague resemblance. Renecia's hair, for example, is about the same length and style of her real-life inventor, Irene Chin -- or at least it was at the time. Same thing with Snow Depthblade's ponytail -- Jessica Moy often had one. And don't think that the Asian look that they all have is somehow accidental! So that's the story. I do this simply because I enjoy it (although I don't often have the time do produce beautiful artwork), and because I know others enjoy it. There's no way I can do every student-created character, even if I wanted to, which I don't. So each graduating class will have some representative(s), at least. I just do them as I see fit. Hope you enjoy. |
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