When I was teaching juniors Lord of the Flies in my Man in Novel course, I wanted to stimulate deeper discussion with the students while providing them with study guides to go with various chapters that I thought were important. Thus, I created various discussion handouts to give them. I have included the following topics from the novel: Building Castles in the Sky, The Erosion of Morality, Hope Forgotten, The Brutal and Animalistic Murder of Simon, and the Dying Flames of a Civilization in Need of a Light. There are 17 pages to this packet to help guide you and your students through the novel.
Note: I made the agenda into an overhead, but it may also be projected on to a smartboard. Feel free to pick and choose discussion questions. Also, pay attention to the little extras like playing the song "Castles in the Sky" as a pre-discussion activity because it stimulates a much richer discussion of the material. My students really enjoyed any little extra thing I added to make it more real and relevant to their lives.
Good idea but a little too dark. However, LOF is a dark story anyway.
February 2, 2012
Fantastic!! Very useful, both student versions and teacher notes!!
April 13, 2009
Awesome connections with the songs!
October 16, 2008
Help
Which castle in the sky song did you use? i have found three so far.
November 5, 2008
It's by Ian Van Dahl. It sounds techno. The key question is: Why do we build castles in the sky?
Note: The boys build castles which represent their attempts at creating a civilization. The authors may be trying to communicate to the reader that our attempts at building a civilization our futile.
November 5, 2008
I am now teaching at a middle school in an award winning school district in PA. Last year, I taught juniors and seniors Man in Novel and Advanced Composition, World Literature, and American Literature. Now, I am teaching eighth grade Accelerated English as well as a lower level English class. I plan on spending next summer in Asia at an orphanage and English School. I am so excited to be able to share my love for literature and writing with my students and colleagues. I am currently working on polishing a few of my novel units. Some of my thoughts on teaching: "Adolescents are not like a battery waiting to be charged up. They are already filled with energy, passion, and curiosity. They hold within themselves a great potential, a burning fire, and a strong line of electricity that just needs to be fed, kindled, and maybe even rekindled by innovative, caring, and dynamic teachers.Are teachers of young adolescents trying to charge them up as if they are dead batteries and hopelessly failing, or are they tapping into what they already possess and connecting to it in a powerful way? Providing students with reader-response journals and allowing students time to reflect on literature and their own lives will always consistently reach at-risk adolescent students because they all have something inside of them needing to get out. They all need a safe place where they can express their inner private self. “Writing offers a safe and private space where students can take apart the culture and come to know themselves” (Shore,2004, p.82). Thus, students can achieve Erickson’s goal of identity; they can “know themselves” and reach a much greater success than imagined.
