What Was the Interschool Digital Dystopian Book Club?
The Inter-school Digital Dystopian Book Club was an inquiry project that brought 4 teachers, 3 Teacher Librarians, and 130 Grade 8 students together to reflect and discuss dystopian literature, while answering the essential question: "Is Our World Becoming Dystopian?"
Each week the students deepened their understanding of their assigned dystopian novels in a variety of ways. Within the classroom, students engaged in exploring different reading strategies to deepen their understanding of their dystopian novel and blogged about their questions with their classmates. At an inter-school level, they explored connections to current events and global issues with other grade 8's from classrooms across the city. Inter-school discussions took place via collaborative tools via Edmodo and Today's Meet.
At the start of every Today's Meet discussion, students had the opportunity to watch a short video clip from a documentary, movie, or newscast. After the clip was briefly discussed as a class, student immediately launched into an on-line LIVE discussion with their book club. During the 30 minute discussion, teachers would ask students questions that connected the video clip and their novels. Students would engage in discussing these questions as well as formulate a few questions of their own. All questions related back to our essential question, "Is Our World Becoming Dystopian?"
During the Edmodo discussions, students had the chance to further explore the theme introduced in the Today's Meet through blogging. The purpose of these discussions was to provide students further time to reflect deeply on the assignment presented and further generate a few questions of their own. Teacher Leaders were continually impressed with the level of insight that the students demonstrated in their responses.
After 5 weeks the conclusion of the project, students had a chance to finally meet their Teacher Leaders and Group Members F2F (Face to Face) at the Dystopian movie, "Divergent". There was also one last discussion on Today's Meet, where students had the opportunity to share their connections between the movie and the dystopian themes explored in the unit.
Attached are links to assignments to our unit, as well as a short video that "pictorially" explores the project.
Each week the students deepened their understanding of their assigned dystopian novels in a variety of ways. Within the classroom, students engaged in exploring different reading strategies to deepen their understanding of their dystopian novel and blogged about their questions with their classmates. At an inter-school level, they explored connections to current events and global issues with other grade 8's from classrooms across the city. Inter-school discussions took place via collaborative tools via Edmodo and Today's Meet.
At the start of every Today's Meet discussion, students had the opportunity to watch a short video clip from a documentary, movie, or newscast. After the clip was briefly discussed as a class, student immediately launched into an on-line LIVE discussion with their book club. During the 30 minute discussion, teachers would ask students questions that connected the video clip and their novels. Students would engage in discussing these questions as well as formulate a few questions of their own. All questions related back to our essential question, "Is Our World Becoming Dystopian?"
During the Edmodo discussions, students had the chance to further explore the theme introduced in the Today's Meet through blogging. The purpose of these discussions was to provide students further time to reflect deeply on the assignment presented and further generate a few questions of their own. Teacher Leaders were continually impressed with the level of insight that the students demonstrated in their responses.
After 5 weeks the conclusion of the project, students had a chance to finally meet their Teacher Leaders and Group Members F2F (Face to Face) at the Dystopian movie, "Divergent". There was also one last discussion on Today's Meet, where students had the opportunity to share their connections between the movie and the dystopian themes explored in the unit.
Attached are links to assignments to our unit, as well as a short video that "pictorially" explores the project.