Chris was talking about how the kids heard from the older kids in the school that they don’t like Pobre Ana. It put Chris in a hard spot. Here are two ideas, Chris, if you have to use Blaine’s novels:
Don’t give them the book. Read it folded flat on the document camera. Spin parallel novels (but that only works for the first two chapters, not all nine). But keep the focus on the kids. Spin the parallel novel. Return to the written text as much as possible, while trying to keep the focus on the kids – it’s a juggling act the secret to which is to not spend too much time on the spin out creation of the parallel novel.
Don’t turn the page until you have done both the reading and the PQA spinoff. But by keeping the book out of their hand, you see all of their eyes on the text next to you on the screen, and the entire negative attitude about reading the book at their desks is lessened substantially.
So that’s the first idea, Chris, don’t give them the books. One thing you could do later, after the novel is done, is give them the book for silent reading for a few chapters in one class for about 20 minutes, as a review of the reading done on the doc reader, and then, in the second half of that class, make them translate a few paragraphs for a major test grade.
What about backwards planning of target vocabulary via stories as preparatory for the novels? That is the big premise on which TPRS is founded – doing stories using the Three Steps to set up the novels. It just takes too long. It would take all year to set up Pobre Ana for April or May with stories all year, and that book only has 300 words in it. So my thought is to read the books faster, without all the backwards planning. That’s just my opinion.
What about chapters 3 through 9 of Pobre Ana, which don’t lend themselves to personalized parallel novel building? What do we do when the text is about Ana not being picked up at the airport by her host family (at least that is in the French version)? We obviously can’t ask the class to pretend that our student Sally is Ana and is lost in the airport. Lame.
Annick Chen had an answer on that one today – she told me that the kids could just draw that scene, and we could put them up on the doc reader. We could go back and forth from the novel to the kids’ drawings and the light discussion engendered by that. Back and forth from the reading to the discussion.
But, again, and this is the only real point of this ramble, since the book is not in their hands, there is a certain denying of the kids their complaints.
Just a few ideas, Chris, to shut that kid up who is being told what to think by the high school teacher.