Novel+Unit

//Full Tilt// by Neal Shusterman
toc This is a Novel Unit in which I could choose any novel of my liking. I chose the book // Full Tilt // by Neal Shusterman because it is a great book for teaching foreshadow, flashback and symbolism. Elements of conflict and characterization is shown throughout the book in which students are able to relate to some of the characters.

Critical Thinking: Author's Writing
As we got deeper into reading the book, I wanted my students to be critically thinking about why and how the author is writing what he is writing. I wanted the students to be able to relate to an experience together and realize that because they are individuals, they will experience it in a different way. With this, students would be able to recognize that each of their peers will relate to the characters, writing, and the whole book in a different way. I also wanted my students to think through the writer's eye grasping why he is writing the way he is and how he is doing so.

I did this by sharing a piece of music to my students telling them that I was going to play a song in which I wanted them to close their eyes and read through their 'minds eye'. Once they has an image in their head, they were to write down the image or scene that they see. I told them that no matter how silly or scary the image or music is to them, they must write down everything. I made sure to tell them that they only had one shot to write this all down and had the music's length (2 minutes and 45 seconds) to get it done. After playing the music, each and every student read what they had written.

This is the music that I played for the classroom. It is quite a bizarre piece of music, so the variety of images students saw were more diverse.

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Characterization
When we got further into the book and characterization was progressing, I made a PowerPoint for my students to gain knowledge of the relationships between the characters and relate to them as well. Here is the PowerPoint:



Fear is an Illusion
In order for students to relate to what was happening in the book and to feel what the characters were feeling and trying to understand why the characters were feeling this way, I discussed with students how fear is drawn by past experiences and thought. If you try to define fear with these two components, it is impossible. I noted to the students that fear is an illusion and it is all in their head. To help students understand this concept, I brought a Jack in the Box to class. The responses I received were incredible with students being afraid of a Jack in the Box, but never even touching or seeing one in real life. They have had the experiences in seeing them in movies or hearing about them through word of mouth. When students were asked to come to the front of the room to test it out, the responses were perfect and fearful.