Description
Course Description
The students will choose a book, and then read a portion of the book every week. During class, we will go over various aspects of what has been read. This will include character analysis, plot development, vocabulary, inflection points of significant impact, and relation to the events and people in our lives. We will also read a few select paragraphs in class as a group.
Course Outcomes
Depending on the book chosen, the outcomes would vary slightly. But each book has a rich vocabulary bank, moral lessons about society, and in – depth characters. By meeting together and discussing each portion as a group, I hope to enhance the skills of critical analysis and thinking from different points of view.
List of books to choose from
>>Book: Divergent
Author: Veronica Roth
Short Introduction: Main character (Tris Prior) lives in a futuristic world where society is divided into five factions based on personality traits. Tris discovers she is a Divergent, meaning she doesn’t fit into any of the factions. Tris discovers that tensions for a possible war are mounting.
>>Book: Maze Runner
Author: James Dashner
Short Introduction: Main character (Thomas) wakes up in a place called the Glade, which is a large field / wooded area surrounded by a maze. There are about 30 teenage – aged boys there. They split into two groups: One group is willing to risk their life to try and escape, and the other group is wanting to hang onto what they’ve got and survive.
>>Book: Hunger games
Author: Suzanne Collins
Short Introduction: Katniss Everdeen, a dirt-poor teenager who becomes a hero after victory in a life-or-death televised gladiator-style contest that’s obsessively watched all over the country.
>>Book: To kill a mockingbird
Author: Harper Lee
Short Introduction: The story of a young girl confronting deep-seated prejudice, it pits a six-year-old Scout Finch and her (relatively) anti-racist family against the segregation of an American South in the grip of Jim Crow.
>>Book: Huckleberry Finn
Author: Mark Twain
Short Introduction: This story brings together two people from the lower rungs of society, an ill-educated boy escaping an abusive father and a kind, strong man escaping slavery, and puts them on a raft going down the Mississippi River.
>>Book: Nectar in a Sieve
Author: Kamala Markandaya
Short Introduction: The book is set in India during a period of intense urban development and is the chronicle of the marriage between Rukmani, youngest daughter of a village headman, and Nathan, a tenant farmer. The story is told in the first person by Rukmani, beginning from her arranged marriage to Nathan at the age of 12. Rukmani and Nathan love each other and their marriage begins in relative peace and plenty, but then a large tannery is built in the neighboring village that slowly takes away from their quality of life.
>>Book: 80 days around the world
Author: Jules Verne
Short Introduction: Phileas Fogg is an English gentleman who has agreed to a wager of 40,000 pounds that he can travel around the world in 80 days.
>>Book: Treasure Island
Author: Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson
Short Introduction: This book, set in 1881, in the days of sailing ships and pirates, tells of the adventures of Jim Hawkins and his search for the buried treasure of a pirate, Captain Flint.
>>Book: Lord of the Flies
Author: William Golding
Short Introduction: In the novel, children are evacuated from Britain because of a nuclear war. One airplane, with adults and prep-school boys as passengers, crashes on an uninhabited island, and all the adults are killed. As the boys fashion their own society, their attempts at establishing a social order gradually devolve into savagery.
About the teacher
Ms. Lara has taught English for fifteen years in different countries around the world. After getting her BA in Sociology and Photography at the University of California, San Diego, she worked with students with special needs for several years, trying to understand every kind of learner and diverse modalities of helping students to utilize their strengths and access learning from their own points of view. She has taught in Honduras and Hungary, as well as many kinds of schools around the US. After teaching English, Science, Art, and Music to 2nd, 6th, 10th and 11th grade students in the Caribbean, she came back to the
US, and got her teaching credential at California State Monterey Bay. Following this, she taught at a small high school in Santa Cruz, CA for twelve years, where she instructed 9-12th grade English, Art, Digital Photography, and History as well as Advanced Placement classes for 5 years. In 2012, she took a hiatus to complete a year as a Fulbright exchange teacher in Budapest, where she taught ESL and was an ambassador for the US. She was nominated for Teacher of the Year in 2015, and received a commendation for her work in 2018. She now tutors students in many subjects, while being a student herself, pursuing another degree. She enjoys working with students and learning from them, and finding new ways to communicate and understand the world around us.
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