Midnight's Children Day 6: Goodreads Review Activity (Computer Lab) Time 50 minutes Setting This course is a Senior elective

entitled "Literature from Around the World." It consists of 25 students, 10 male and 15 female. 10 students are white while 8 are African America. 6 are Latino/a, and one student is Asian. Five of the Latino students are bilingual Spanish speakers, but they are not classified as ELL. One student has ADHD. All students are of varied ability.

Theory into Practice/Background Now that students have completed their historical context jigsaw projects, it is important for them to reflect back on Walsh's text and evaluate its effectiveness in developing a cursory understanding of the history of India. One of the resources that students will use in this lesson is a video clip of Salman Rushdie appearing on the Colbert Report to discuss the importance of literary criticism. As Rushdie points out, with the huge volume of texts that are being released every year, it is almost impossible to find the really good work in all of the others. While Rushdie's comments are mostly related to the work of professional literary critics, I thought that this problem, the crisis of a lack of substantive literary criticism could be something that students could work to alleviate. This lesson has students read and compose goodreads.com reviews for Judith Walsh's A Brief History of India as a way of not only interacting with the sphere of literary discourse in an authentic way but also to see that there exists an available and appropriate public forum where their thoughts and ideas about what they read can be valued. One of the prevailing themes in the theory that we have studied within this course is the idea that students must be given a voice to negotiate meaning and to formulate powerful connections to a larger community. As Burke puts it, students need to have "the ability to

navigate a variety of settings with people with similar or dissimilar views; being able to communicate in a variety of ways to achieve positive outcomes" (17) Faltis and Coulter describe this same process by nothing that "Wider community contexts are tied into and built upon, as English learners become participants in questioning and redesigning local contexts and beyond" (40) While they are speaking about ESL students, their sentiments can be appropriately extrapolated to apply to all students and the need to give students the opportunity to use their knowledge make an impact on the larger community. While it is true that students often use other social media outlets to connect with this community, this lesson allows them to dovetail their mastery of those communal spheres with a more substantive academic purpose. One of the advantages to using goodreads.com as opposed to using Amazon or another site is that it is constituted by a community of readers first and foremost. This is a space in which, as English instructors, we should encourage students to feel comfortable engaging. Another benefit to this lesson is that if it is repeated throughout the day with multiple class periods and even used from year to year, students will have the opportunity to speak directly to the comments of their peers and even look across time to gain perspectives from previous students.

Objectives Students will become familiar with where to find the historical information for the unit. They will also be able to synthesize information from online reviews and compose their own reviews of texts. They will also become acquainted with the goodreads.com site, a tremendous resource for anyone who loves books.

Materials This class will take place in the computer lab so that each student may have access to an internet connected computer.

Preparation The teacher should have the Historical Context Packets completely arranged and ready to distribute. The web browser should feature tabs of the course website where the presentations are available, the link to the Colbert Report interview with Salman Rushdie (http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/86627/may-09-2007/salman-rushdie), and the goodreads.com page for Judith Walsh's A Brief History of India.

Procedure The teacher begins by distributing the Historical Context Packets that were formulated from the student presentations from the previous week. The teacher takes a few minutes to go over the organization of the packets and demonstrate how information in the packet can be cross checked with information out of the book by choosing an event, looking it up in A Brief History of India, and reading the passage aloud. The teacher must then press upon students the importance of keeping this packet in a very safe place where it can be accessed quickly for in-class purposes and for the purposes of writing the weekly journal assignments. Next, the teacher shows the students the course website where the presentations and audio recordings are located and also directs them to a link where a replacement copy of the Historical Context Packet can be downloaded. 10 minutes. Next, the teacher shows the students the Colbert Report clip featuring Salmon Rushdie discussing the importance of literary criticism. Students are then asked to summarize what Mr. Rushdie's feelings on literary criticism are and why he feels that it is so important. 10 minutes The teacher then directs students to the goodreads.com entry on Judith Walsh's A Brief History of India. Students will need to take a few moments to set up an account to view the site fully as well as to upload their own reviews later on. There they can look at reviews written by users of Amazon about the book. Students are asked to find two reviews: one positive and one negative

and compare the two. They will write the answers to the following questions which will be listed on the board: "What is the average star rating for this book? Do you agree with that rating? What aspects of the reviews do you agree with? Which do you do not? Pretend that you had not read Walsh's book. Based on the majority of the reviews on this page, would you be inclined to read it? Why or why not? Now, consider your own reading from the text. What aspects did you enjoy? Which did you feel were weak? Now, write your own review of this text and assign it a star rating. Be sure to rationalize your rating in your review based on the following criteria: writing style, how informative was the text, was information confusing or easy to follow, and did you enjoy reading the book." Once students have completed all aspects of the assignment, they are to email the document with their answers to the teacher and upload their review on to Amazon for the benefit of future readers. 30 minutes

Discussion Ideas What are Mr. Rushdie's feelings about literary criticism and why does he feel that way? How can we contribute to improving the dialogue about literature ? What aspects of the reviews do you agree with? Which do you do not? Pretend that you had not read Walsh's book. Based on the majority of the reviews on this page, would you be inclined to read it? Why or why not? Now, consider your own reading from the text. What aspects did you enjoy? Which did you feel were weak?

Accommodations ESL: As was stated in the Theory into Practice section, this lesson falls into the realm of one of Faltis and Coulter's "Commitments in Practice" by giving students the opportunity to utilize their knowledge and share their voice with a local community and beyond.

ADHD: The student is allowed to wear headphones to block out the noise of other students during individual work time. This student will also need to be monitored closely to make sure that they are making effective use of class time. The teacher must be extremely vigilant as computers provide a whole range of additional distracters for the student.

Assessment The reviews will be evaluated based on a check-plus, check, check-minus system. Check-plus: Student answered all questions with great care and serious thought. The review would likely be helpful for someone wanting to know if the book was right for them. Check: Student attempted to answer the questions, but the review is not thought out enough to be entirely helpful. Check-minus: Student did not address all of the questions, and the review is not thought out enough to be entirely helpful.

Extension Ideas Once students have completed reading Midnight's Children, we will perform this assignment again for that text. Students should be encouraged to utilize this practice at every opportunity to help elevate the dialogue about literature on the internet.

Source of Activity Jason Peterson was chiefly responsible for the inception of this activity. Liana Cabrera and Caitlin Stevenson also made very helpful contributions.

Resources and References Burke, J. The English Teacher's Companion: A complete guide to classroom, curriculum, and the profession, (3rd ed). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 2007

The Colbert Report. Perf. Stephen Colbert and Salman Rushdie. Viacom, 2007. Colbertnation.com. Comedy Central, 9 May 2007. Web. 12 Dec. 2011. <http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/86627/may-09-2007/salmanrushdie>. Faltis, Christian, and Cathy Coulter. Teaching English Learners and Immigrant Students in Secondary Schools. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall, 2008. Walsh, Judith E. A Brief History of India. New York: Facts on File, 2006. Illinois State English Language Arts Goals 1.C.5c Critically evaluate information from multiple sources. Not only will students be writing reviews in which they evaluate the writings of Judith Walsh, they will also be critically evaluating the contributions of other users of the site and synthesizing information from reviews to inform their own response. 3.B.5 Using contemporary technology, produce documents of publication quality for specific purposes and audiences; exhibit clarity of focus, logic of organization, appropriate elaboration and support and overall coherence. This activity requires students to use technology and to engage in an unconventional form of publication. Students will be responding both as individuals and as representatives of the class, so providing a positive representation through coherence and clarity will be paramount.