Class #44--6th Grade English

Wednesday, March 30, 2011, 8:20 A.M. 6th Grade English Class. Class #44 on my “50 Classes or Bust!” journey. It is first period, and the students are fully engaged as I walk into Mrs. Williams’s class a few moments after the bell rings. A class member kindly brings me up to speed on the plot of Parvana’s Journey, an award-winning novel about the war in Afghanistan. The main characters, most notably 13 year-old girl Parvana, have all experienced great loss, but they have “found each other,” so to speak. The book’s cover explains, “At times extremely sad, Parvana’s Journey provides an honest and compassionate look at the situation in Afghanistan, yet never loses sight of the courage and hope that can keep children afloat even in the most horrific circumstances.” The students have identified four main themes in the book: war, survival, loss, and children in an adult world. Today, the students are taking quotations from the book (on strips of paper) and gluing them under the appropriate theme. Mrs. Williams, who also serves as Dean of Students and Director of Summer Programs and Community Outreach, stresses that one can make a good argument for a quotation being placed in several different categories. The most important thing, she explains, is to clarify and “state your case” with evidence. Under Mrs. Williams’s skillful guidance, the students are discussing heavy material with maturity and thoughtfulness. They take turns reading the quotations aloud, with Mrs. Williams exhorting them to speak with the appropriate emotion and intonation, depending on the nature of the quotation. Next, students read excerpts from their homework assignment, which was to write about their own personal “Green Valley,” which in the novel is an imaginary place of health, peace, and bounty. In the final few minutes of class, the students stand in a circle and review vocabulary from their text, Worldly Wise. Mrs. Williams reads a definition, and then two students compete to say the corresponding vocabulary word. The winner advances to the next spot on the circle. Bravo to Mrs. Williams and her class!