Story Time

The tools of technology have changed the look of education. Much of the 7-8s' work is done electronically, through Google Docs. They can all make Prezis. Many of the kids carry miniature dictionaries and encyclopedias everywhere. They are very adept at researching, substantiating, and chronicling work on the fly using web-based tools.

But the best innovation recent years for me has been reading aloud. By the end of the year, the fifteen of us will have read eight to ten books together--literally together, at the same pace, gathered in a small clump for storytime in a manner that would not have seemed out of place at a Stone Age campfire.

We opened the year with George Orwell's Animal Farm. This works with all three of our key themes for the year. Identity in particular is engaged throughout the book--who is a friend, and who an enemy? Who is in charge, and who is a peer? The kids were enraged by the ending, where the animals look from man to pig, and pig to man, and can no longer tell the difference. Rachel led them through some online research. Rather than being told about communism and controversy, the kids found it all themselves. They also found a 1950s cartoon, which tried to be both dark and adorable. We watched it on a Friday afternoon, and the kids actually burst into applause at the rebooted ending.

Then we read Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street. This book is a series of forty-four short portraits or life in a Latino neighborhood in Chicago. The kids are writing their own autobiographical novellas (only three chapters), and these will be displayed in the school along with Tyree Guyton-inspired self-portraits.

We are just underway with Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. I expect we'll read two other short novels right after this: Janet Lewis' The Wife of Martin Guerre and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.