Literature Circles Blog Post 2

Task:

Classrooms full of excitement, novels and sheets in hand, for the second week 120 sixth graders were ready for their second Literature Circle.

Questions could be heard as students came into class; "Will Charlotte trust Captain Jaggery now that she knows about the round robin?", How much longer can Brian survive? Will Julie survive with the wolf pack?....

In post #2, choose one the important passages on your discussion sheet and in a well structured blog post write about :

1. Your discussion with your group about the passage.

2. How your understandings changed after the discussion.

3. Any new insights that you gained from the discussion.

My Response:

The most important passage I chose from my Literature Circle discussion is:

the passage where I explained Charlotte's discovery of the round robin and pistol. My group discussed how the discovery was interesting because Mr.Ewing forgot to think about if his pistol was in a safe place before allowing Charlotte to go search for the needle. I thought more about how maybe Mr.Ewing remembered but thought it would cause more suspicions if he ran up to Charlotte and stopped her from entering the forecastle. It might also be possible that he forgot where it was placed and had also forgotten altogether about the important meeting taking place in the forecastle.

I understood more about the passage because I focused more on the different insights about how the author set up Charlotte's discovery. How it made it seem so fateful and destiny. A mistake just waiting to happen, just like Charlotte's unlucky arrival on The Seahawk. Our group discussed how it wasn't exactly fate, in the authors hands because Avi set the whole story up with events that just fell into place with the most interesting writing techniques. It wasn't very complicated to understand because with different insights you could try to look into the many ways of how the writer would have looked into the situation or how he would have created the situations so that they fall into order.

You can try to take a glimpse on the different ways the passage could have turned out if Avi-the author changed how they thought, acted, behaved etc.

Avi might have even changed how the situation happened completely. Gave it a twist and made sure that Charlotte never found out about the round robin or pistol. For example, if Avi made Charlotte more reluctant to be helpful or more uncomfortable with the crew, she might have been reading to Mr.Ewing to please Captain Jaggery, but she might have not felt it proper for her to fetch utensils for people of lower status and the discovery would've never happened.

Just Like That!

This just shows how the author can twist things to his advantage, or use writing techniques to make the passage interesting and special to the reader. It was a very interesting discussion which included amazing revelations in Charlotte Doyle's adventures! I look forward to knowing more about Charlotte's life!