Ideal? Or Real?

Today, we explored the parents we see populating the pages of The Absolute Value of Mike. We explored and discussed Poppy, Moo, Mike's Dad (James), Mike's Mom, Karen, and Gladys's parents. With each parent, we tried to think about the iceberg, and what might be going on beneath the surface and why these parents act the way they do.

I really appreciated all your insightful comments--and how you used the text to support your ideas and inferences!

We also did a Quick Write from the prompt, The best parent would... You wrote for six minutes without picking your pens up off the page, and we encouraged tangents and let our gooey, mushy brains take our hands wherever they wanted to go!

Towards the end of class, in pairs, you each created a list of seven attributes you believed an ideal parent would possess. Then, we discussed how those apply (or do not apply) to the parents in Mike. Finally, we wondered as a class whether the ideal was even possible--or whether we all deal with the real, while we constantly grow and yearn for the ideal.

Our word for the day was SEGUE, which means to make a smooth transition from one topic to another (verb). An example of the word in a line would be: Harold began by talking about honey and then segued into a discussion of why he loves bees.

Have a great night, and remember that Draft # 2 of your short stories are due tomorrow. Be sure to staple the first draft on the back, and include the cover page (here's the link to how to do your cover page, in case you need a refresher). 

Rock on!