Resilience Literature

 Years ago author Laurie Halse Anderson spoke about MG/YA literature she called "resilience literature," and this seemed like a good time to share the idea with students. If there was ever a time for resiliency, now is the time! Seventh graders had class discussions about resilience lit based on a short Slides presentation we walked through together in class.

CLICK HERE to access the full presentation

While our conversations focused primarily on realistic fiction titles, students soon began offering titles that covered a wide range of genres. In a Google Form ticket-out quick assessment, students provided dozens of titles that we later looked at in a Google Sheet:

This collective knowledge then became a stepping-off point for students as they worked on a resilience literature triangle to show their understanding of the topic. Students worked on a Google Slide that included a book with examples of the bad things characters overcame to be resilient. Because students were including images with their explanations, this was a good time to remind them about Unsplash.com images (and its add-on) and clipart.com, both places where students can access copyright-free images.

With Covid-19 protocols in place, sharing our work with one another took on a slightly different look. Students revised their sharing settings, then provided the URL for their work in a Google Form. The spreadsheet of Form responses was something they could access from a link emailed to them, and from there, students could see one another's work. After some time, students participated in a 3-2-1 response activity based on what they'd seen from their classmates:

You can see examples of students' work below:

Genre Work

 Recently sixth graders have been talking about genre in their reading classes, so we picked up the mantle in Literacy Studies for a little "show what you know" activity in Google Slides.

After a class discussion about genre and books in those genres--along with examples of elements from the stories to support the genre--students began their work:

Because this was our first project of the year, we took class time to talk about copyrighted images and places where we can go to get copyright-free images, like Unsplash.com. We're able to use the Unsplash add-on in Slides, so this becomes an even easier way for us to include images in our work.

Students had class time to work on their Slides before sharing their work.

With Covid-19 protocols in place, sharing our work with one another took on a slightly different look. Students revised their sharing settings, then provided the URL for their work in a Google Form. The spreadsheet of Form responses was something they could access from a link emailed to them, and from there, students could see one another's work. After some time, students participated in a 3-2-1 response activity based on what they'd seen from their classmates:

You can also see some examples of students' work below: