What are human rights?

The United Nations General Assembly, in 1948, just after the fall of the Nazi regime and the end of World War II, stated that every individual on earth is entitled to certain inalienable rights no matter their race, religion, sex, age or nationality. These rights were defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in Paris in 1948 by the United Nations.

Please read all of the 30 articles adopted by the United Nations here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights

Now that we are finishing our unit of study on historic fiction and the bookclubs are coming to an end, you have experienced what it is like for an individual to experience slavery, child prostitution, genocide, racial segregation and religious oppression, I would like for you to reflect again on our essential question: how is literature a record of human experience? Ask yourself why the book you read is important to history, why this story should be told, and most importantly how can you now try to stop this human rights injustice from ever happening again.

Before you pick the topic of your zine, I want you to investigate for yourself the different topics in human right violations around the world. First look for organizations that defend human rights, like UNESCO, Human Rights Watch, and the ACLU. On these various websites you will find violations in human rights occurring presently and in the past.

Your homework is to come to class on Thursday with an idea or topic that you can share with your class for the pre-writing phase of the Zine writing workshop.

Good luck!

How is literature a record of human experience?

Today in class I introduced our next unit of study: Historic Fiction. Already you have chosen your top three books to read for the book clubs. So today I´d like you to think about what you know about historic fiction; what you want to know about historic fiction or the historical time period of your book; finally try to answer the essential question for the unit: how is literature a record of human experience?

This question will be constantly referred to throughout the term, so write your answer now, and then in February we´ll see how our answers have changed or evolved.

For extra credit you can post your KWL as a comment below this post!

Chrysanthemum

Here is another student example of Digital Storytelling using the picture book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. This podcast was created by Roberta Camacho and Denia Luna. Enjoy!

Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco

This is one of many podcasts students in 8th grade Language Arts completed over the last week. This digital adaption is read aloud by Marianna Harb and Cristy Maldonado.

What is Theme?

Next week we´ll start delving into the mysterious and illusive definition of theme, especially when it comes to literature.

How do you identify theme in a work of literature?

Is one person´s understanding of theme the same as everyone else´s, or do people interpret the central idea of a story differently, depending on their unique understanding?

Also, is theme the same as the message or moral of a story? Can theme be thought of the same as genre?

These are the many questions we face over the next week, as begin to grapple with identifying the them in a variety of literary texts. This is gonna be interesting!

ps. If you want extra credit, try posting a comment under this post ;)

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Trying to get through a tough novel. Ever since reading the Hunger Games trilogy, I´ve been on a dystopian crave. Although the idea and basic premise of BNW is extremely interesting in terms of predetermined success and failure, I can´t help while reading but think how outdated it feels. BNW was only published a decade before 1984, even still the writing, though most definitely as prophetic as 1984, doesn´t feel as connected to the real world I live in today.

Hopefully Brave New World will hook me in the next chapter or two, because this is a book I don´t want to abandon, and will most likely read till the bitter end!