Social Issues Celebration

For the past month, we've read with a focus on social issues. We grew the chart below as we read across many books this year, identifying in clubs or whole class conversations the issues, ideas, and concepts hidden in the text we read.

Our work during social issues focused largely on determining what each text taught us about the issues and then pushing ourselves to be the kind of readers who change our own ideas as a result of reading the text.

During this unit, in addition to returning to favorite read alouds and rereading them (many we know by heart, practically), we read Wonder by RJ Palacio. (We're sure you know this already, as it's been a favorite in our class and most likely mentioned at home by now.)

In Wonder, one of Auggie's teachers, Mr. Browne, has precepts for each month. Similar to our class agreement - our precept - If you work really hard and are kind, amazing things will happen - Mr. Browne's September precept was "When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind."

To celebrate our work for the past month on social issues, each student chose an issue, idea or concept from our chart and wrote his own precept. This felt like an appropriate way to end our time together. We share them with you in the video below.