{"id":12768,"date":"2021-01-10T20:36:18","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T04:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/gaitensp\/?p=12768"},"modified":"2021-01-10T20:36:18","modified_gmt":"2021-01-11T04:36:18","slug":"exploding-philip-pullman-duck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/gaitensp\/2021\/01\/10\/exploding-philip-pullman-duck\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploding Philip Pullman – Duck!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Talent borrows; genius steals.\u00a0 This reading technique, “Exploding Sentences,” was stolen from the much missed Ms. Wilson (late of Cap Hill; lately of lucky, lucky University Heights), who learned it, I believe, from Faye Brownlie<\/a><\/strong>, from whom most\/all great ideas about language instruction come.<\/p>\n

Take a sentence (or in our case, a paragraph – it is MACC after all) (whatever that means) (ahem *Mental Asylum for Corrupted Children” ahem), then use your red pen\/pencil crayon to explore the author’s use of language: what you you notice about word choice?\u00a0 Sentence structure?\u00a0 Paragraph structure?\u00a0 Use of figurative language?\u00a0 Use of punctuation?\u00a0 Why do you think the author made those choices?\u00a0 What impact do you think they wanted to have on the reader?<\/p>\n

Then get out your blue pen: what questions can you ask of the text?\u00a0 What do you want to know more about?<\/p>\n

Finally green: can you use known information to try to answer some of the your questions?\u00a0 Can you make predictions?<\/p>\n

In December we finished reading Book One, The Golden Compass<\/em>, of Philip Pullman’s\u00a0His Dark Materials<\/em> series (fasten your seat belts for Book Two, The Subtle Knife<\/em>!).\u00a0 This is my third time reading this book out loud with a class, and each time I appreciate it more and more.\u00a0 It doesn’t get any better.\u00a0 The energy in the room is on fire. 100% engagement.<\/p>\n

Before reading each chapter, we would “explode” one of that chapter’s paragraphs, first privately\/individually, then going hive-mind to collect our ideas on the board and deepen our understanding by teaching each other.<\/p>\n

Two things I’ve noticed:<\/p>\n

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  1. Take a look at how deeper our thinking got over the course of only two months.<\/li>\n
  2. A funny coincidence (or not) is that at the same time we were doing this work, focused on reading, everyone’s writing<\/em> has been growing by leaps and bounds too.\u00a0 Funny how that works…<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n