Good, Bad, or Ugly

Throughout this week and last week, we have been having Lit Circles with a twist. We have been collaborating with partners or in groups to create a lit circle. For this assignment, there are good, and bad sides to it. There are quite a few benefits that I would like to tell you about. There are also some challenges I'd like to share. And, well, what did I really get out of it? You will read about all these when you read this post.

When we did this Lit circle, I found that there are many benefits thats helped me through it. One of them was not having to do all the work. In this activity you were not responsible for doing all the work. You also had an advantage by having others being able to help you. For example, if you were ever stuck, you could always ask for some help. And if something went wrong, then you can blame EVERYONE. You would never be alone. Another thing that I found good was having people to keep you grounded, your partners helped you get work done on time, such as a due date. They also gave you constructive criticism. As you can see, there are many benefits, and advantages, but there is also some downsides to this assignment.


Although I liked this assignment best out of all other Lit circles, there were still quite a few challenges to it. To start off, one of the things I thought was challenging was being in different locations. For example, over the week end, it would be hard to work on the project, if you didn't meet them somewhere. Although people were only responsible for 1/2 or 1/3 of the work, sometimes you might have done more work than you were suppose to because of your classmates. Another hard thing with this was when writing, sometimes you want to do more, but you can only do an amount of work, for instance, you could not do other people's work because then they don't do any of it! Sometimes it would also be hard to communicate effectively because we couldn't talk over the weekend, which is why google docs is a very good tool to use on these assignments.


As you can see, this assignment was great, but had some disadvantages. Some things helped me a lot. Yet some made it even harder. 

Hatchet

Hatchet. This is the tittle of the book I have been reading for literature circles. For me this book is very interesting, there is lots of action, mystery, and survival guiding tips. Well, some question Mr. Thomas had for us, such as How did your discussion help your understanding of the novel? He also wanted to know some connections we made with the book. Another question that Mr. Thomas asked had been What Do You Predict Will Happen in the Book? 

How did my discussion with my group help my understanding? Well, did it? In my opinion, I think it did, well, most of it at least. In the discussion, I thought it was very helpful to see other people perspectives on the book. The questions also answered that I had never really thought about until then What foreshadows are given in this story. It also gave me a chance to hear many different answers. After hearing other people perspectives on the book, it gave me lots to think about.

 I think that it is much easier to make connection with this book because the boy, Brian is described about the same age and he lives in a modern world. One of the connections I made with the book was when Brian is trying to call for help using the radio. It is not working, the boy gets so frustrated that he starts screaming into the radio. Then, he finds out that he needs to turn off HIS mike to hear anyone else. This has happened to me many times. Well, not the pilot dying or anything, but the trying so hard then falling back down again. It's like working your whole life to climb a huge mountain, then falling from the top of the mountain. OK maybe the situation that Brian was in wasn't life or death, but it was intense because you are thinking, NO NO NO! You have to answer the radio! But then after, you find what Brian really did wrong, and a sigh of relief comes through your body. In my opinion, after this happens, you feel pretty stupid, don't you?

Predictions. Everyone has different ones but I think that this book is going to have a happy ending. Well, almost a happy ending, I think this book will end like Call it Courage by Armstrong Sperry. I think that Brian is going to meet trouble along the way, in the woods. But, remember, he does have the hatchet. The hatchet has to tie into the story. Everyone has different predictions, but how good are they?

Many people think that the literature circle are a waste of time, like I did, but now I have realized that Mr. Thomas set us this assignment because he wants us to go deeper into our thoughts, and share them with other people, see what they think of it, debate, not argue, debate over statements. I have found that it is actually worth the time and effort I have put into them.