Rewiring the Brain!!

What do neurons have to do with reading a novel? What do synapses have to do with English class, anyway!? Today, we began a small project in imagining what the brains of our characters look like.

Our word for the day was NEURON, which is what we call the tiny greyish / reddish cells within our brains (we have anywhere from 100 to 200 BILLION of these little things!). We explored how our brains make connections, and how each of the neurons talks to other neurons.

In preparation for our activity, we read and annotated this article entitled, "Rewiring the Brain." (Click on the link in case you need an extra copy, or if you were absent.) Then, we discussed key lines from the text and shared confusions about other passages within the text.

In pairs, you each chose a character from our novel and began to sketch out the brain (ooey! gooey! neuron-saturated!) of this character, complete with what connections you think this character's brain focuses on. 

We'll continue with our brain project tomorrow, after our vocabulary mission. Be sure to be comfortable with these five words for tomorrow: Outlier, Epiphany, Saunter, Initiate, and Intrinsic. 

Have an awesome evening--and remember to let the neurons on your brain build a new road!