This happened for me about a week ago, when I popped my head into Ms. McGuire's 5th grade room. She pointed at her stack of new copies of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and said, "Get thinking about how you can help us with these." WHAT?!?!
Let's back up a few decades to my formative years. I was never into reading as a kid. I read what I had to read for school and occasionally found books that I liked to read. But I was never what I would consider a reader all through my childhood. That changed during college in my Children's Lit course. One of our required readings was The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and my eyes were opened to the awesomeness of books. I have never been the same since. Because of that trip to Narnia, I have battled for Middle Earth, lived through numerous national dilemmas, and solved countless murders, not to mention exploring the human mind, educational philosophy, and human nature through non-fiction. Would I like to help with this class's trip to Narnia? I couldn't sign up fast enough!!!!
The problem really boils down to how to use technology when teaching such an epic novel. Since Google searches weren't much help, I had to come up with my own epic idea. After pondering for a while, it finally hit me! The students could blog the journey through the wardrobe as one of the Pevensie children!
From there the idea moved pretty quickly. I read the first couple chapters and created my own blog as Tumnus the Faun to give the students an example to work toward. It was fun to design the blog as if a faun was writing it, keeping the focus of the book in mind. I'm still toying with the idea of continuing the blog throughout the course of the book or just keeping up one post as an example for future years.
Yesterday, the students started their blogs, and I'm just geeking out over bringing my passions of reading, blogging, and edtech together as we read one of my favorite books. Stay tuned, and I'll have student examples soon.
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