Threatened: February 14, 2017

Focus: What threats do the characters face as teenagers in The Color of Water?

1. Warming up: Researching the KKK to understand the threat it posed in the 1940s

• Click here for the History Channel's Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History

• I recommend watching the first 2 and a half minutes (2:30) to get a sense of the scope of the KKK, and then from about 41 minutes to 45 minutes to get a specific sense of their presence in the 1940s and 50s.

• The goal: Return to your blog entry for Chapter 11; how does this background information help you understand the fear in this chapter? What threats is the mother facing at this point in her life?

2. Reading and blogging about The Color of Water: We're through Chapter 14 for today and Chapter 17 for Thursday

Extra challenge: Why did McBride place the chapters "New York" and "Chicken Man" side by side?

3. Discussing Chapters 12-14 in The Color of Water in a snowball format

Basic structure: You will begin in pairs, responding to a discussion question only with a single partner. After a few minutes of discussion, the pair joins another pair to become a group of four. Pairs will share their ideas with the pair they just joined and then move onto their next question. Next, groups of four join together to form groups of eight, and so on, until the whole class is joined up in one large discussion. In this class, there will be 5 rounds.

Before we begin, prepare some questions for each round. You can write these on your blog, in your notebook, or on a sticky note inside your book. Look to your blog to see if you already have some good questions.

Round 1: Character questions
Why does this character...? What motivates this character to...? 

Round 2: Relationship questions
Why does this character treat this other character like this? Why does this character respond to this other character like this?

Round 3: Setting
How does living in this city/town impact ______? How does this one particular place influence ______?

Round 4: Diction
Why is this line on page ___ so important? What does it reveal about ____?

Round 5: Theme
What does the author want us to learn about _____? What does he want to us to understand better or differently?


HW:
1. By Thursday, read Chapters 15, 16, and 17 in The Color of Water; create a blog entry (and make sure your others are up-to-date).

2. This Friday, bring in all the photos and artifacts you can dig up that have to do with your character.

3. All make-up work (grammar quizzes, reading blogs, etc.) due this Friday, Feb 17, which is the end of six weeks.