9/30/08

Today's journal assignment was to write each of the word cells on my list five times. Here is the list:

hydra, hydro
chron
therm
meter
di
centi
phobia
ize
logical

We continued with our reading of The Outsiders. We read through page 75 today. At this point of the book, we are in the middle of the rising action and several themes have been introduced. A theme is a big idea, a lesson, a moral of the story, or a recurring idea in the book. We brainstormed a list of themes we seen so far, and this is what we came up with:

violence causes more problems than it solves
friends are important influences
everyone has problems, no matter the social class
don't judge a book by its cover (stereotyping)
families come in all different forms
everyone could be considered an "outsider" depending on who they are with
your group doesn't define you as an individual

We also talked about symbols. A symbol is a thing or event that represents something greater than itself. Some symbols we've found in the book so far:

greasers' hair = their identity
socs' money, cars, clothes, jewelry = social status, wealth, power, intimidation

We met in groups to discuss themes in an activity called "The Last Word". Each member of the group was given opportunity to discuss a theme of the book. We also talked about the importance of connecting literature to our own lives. If we don't ask ourselves what it means to us individually, we don't really learn the lessons the book has to offer.

If you missed today, please check out a book and get caught up on the reading.

Remember, there will be a quiz on the first 75 pages tomorrow. The spelling quiz will be on Thursday this week due to parent/teacher conferences.

Please come see me during the conferences with your parents. The more your parents are involved in your education, the more you will learn.