Book Study - Realistic Fiction

Wow, are we digging into reading! I have been so impressed with how much your kiddos just absolutely love to read. I've had regular requests for TWO Read to Self times on many different days. While this is very hard to fit in with our packed schedule, it just warms my heart that my students continue to ask for this. On to the purpose of this post...how to complete our second Book Study project on realistic fiction.

Task #1: Reading Log
Log your reading minutes or the pages you read by day for the next two weeks.

Task #2: Mind Map
Illustrate an in-depth understanding of your character by reflecting their feelings, opinions, fears, etc. through showing thoughts they may have or comments they might make. Think about this character's relationships with other characters in the story and how they respond to or interact with them. Think about frustrations, joys, challenges, or successes. Today we used Hoot to create a class model. We chose Roy since he was the main character, and also discussed the possibility of choosing Mullet Fingers or Beatrice since we know those two fairly well also. We decided that Dana Matherson would  not be a good choice since his character is fairly shallow...he's just a bully and has a very narrow focus.

After our discussion I completed the Task, and here's what our "mind map" for Roy looks like...I considered his relationship with or opinion of Dana Matherson, Beatrice, Mullet Fingers, Officer David Delinko, and his parents. I knew I needed to incorporate each of these people to show all the different angles of Roy's character and how everyone was involved with the owl situation (the main problem). I also modeled how to complete a quick sketch of our character that is still a quality illustration, and chose to illustrate each example of a thought or a comment in a different color (colored pencils, Flair felt tip pens, or fine point Sharpies work well) to make the project easier to read (not necessary or required, but definitely a good option for publishing).

Task #3: Storyline / Plotline

Now that we've really shown who our main character is we can map out the problem they faced, how they chose to deal with it, and how it was resolved. We've had a few discussions about the plotline in Hoot over the last week or so, and initially started with about 4-5 lines that all ended up tying together into one. Initially, our thought was that Roy and Dana (the bully) were one story line, Officer Delinko and his quest solve the pancake house mystery and further his career another, Beatrice and Roy's rocky and confrontational encounters a third, Roy's obsession with learning about Mullet Fingers the fourth, and Curly's issues with the vandal and Chuck E. Muckle the last. As I contemplated how best to illustrate these five "mini plot lines," I realized that each of these was just the author's way of developing everyone in the story who was or would become involved with Mother Paula's Pancake House and the fight to save the owls. The problem at the heart of the story was that the owls would be buried if the site was bulldozed, and the kids had to figure out a way to prevent this from happening. Once I came to this realization, I was able to see how all these other story lines just helped us to understand Roy and the situation that much better. 

Here's a snapshot of our plotline for Hoot. Each student will have some form of "mountain" effect, although some may have a few smaller "peaks" on the way up (Harry Potter books are a great example of this, as there are usually several pretty intense moments along the way). Because my events ended up extending over the right side of my arc and covered the area where I would have described the resolution, I opted to include the problem and resolution above and below the arc.

Happy reading!