There is a joy in teaching honors-level kids that are actually honors material (and, while I have a post talking about what it takes to be an
honors teacher, I don't have one that talks about what makes a great honors student...hmmm, I suppose I should get on that). For now, let's just say that being a successful honors kid has nothing to do with how smart you are, but how willing you are to let your teacher push you to your limits, get you out of your comfort zone and how willing you are to learn regardless of what grade you will receive in the end. Each semester I have students transfer out of my class because they have Bs and don't want to hurt their GPAs, but I have kids who know how challenging, but rewarding it was to make a B or an A or even a C stay in the class for Round 2. I like what a kid said the other day, "I figured I made it through the first half of this class, I can make it through the second." Being an honors kid means having the right attitude and part of that attitude is this nerdy delight in all things literature.
Queue this post.
I usually teach
The Great Gatsby (GG) in a broader Modern American Dream unit where kids get to choose whether they want to read
The Sun Also Rises (SAR) or GG, sometimes I teach SAR or GG, sometimes I don't teach GG at all, but give it as an option for an independent read. I was telling the kids this and so many of them were so upset...'what do you mean, we aren't going to read
The Great Gatsby!?' and 'please can we read
The Great Gatsby!' that I spent Christmas Break revamping my units to incorporate both SAR and GG. For those of you who want to see what my 2nd semester looks like you can click on my working calendars
here (January is missing, well, because I didn't need to work on it, we're already doing it and it's
Ethan Frome and
Our Town and Small Town America), if you have any questions feel free to ask.
Sources for my GG unit (because, um, why reinvent the wheel):
The Great Gatsby 4-Week Bundle (I love TpT)
ShareMyLesson (free site for lessons and they have some delicious ones!)
Stuff from when I taught it in years past or want to add:
Aside from that little bit with the Age of Reason/Transcendentalism/Realism-Naturalism (we are a strangely American Literature based Honors Sophomore English class-don't ask it's a long story) and May as the all encompassing month for
JC, the 2nd semester is pretty Modern, and I'm OK with that!
