A Timely Discussion

Over the last month or so my class has been reading A Wrinkle in Time. They thought it was an awesome book and we learned a lot about literature in the process. The hardest part of the unit was trying to keep a student who knew parts of the book from spoiling it for the rest of the class!

The resource I used to guide our discussions and writings was published by Scholastic and can be found here. Literature Circle Guide – A Wrinkle in Time.

The guide breaks the book down into fourteen sections. One for before reading, one for after reading, and the rest were for one or two chapters in the Wrinkle in Time text. Each section was then broken down into a journal writing activity and a discussion group. The students usually spent fifteen to twenty-five minutes on the journal and thirty to forty-five minutes on the discussion. A different student would lead the discussion each week using the worksheet as a a guide.

Student journals for A Wrinkle in Time

Each journal activity includes a mini-lesson based on different reading strategies like making inferences, summarizing, and making predictions.Then they have a choice of one of three writing prompts. Here is an example from the chapter one discussion sheet. 

1. Which details in the story lead you to infer that Mrs. Who and Mrs. Whatsit are not ordinary human beings?

After they complete the prompt they write down any questions, comments, predictions, or connections they have about the reading.

The discussion section of the lessons were great. A different student was in charge of each discussion and I was impressed with the way they were able to stay on topic and explore the talking points fairly thoroughly. Here is an example of a talking point taken from the chapters 2-3 discussion sheet.

By the end of Chapter 3, you have some information about Meg’s father, the work he did, and the circumstances of his disappearance. (Note: Cape Canaveral is now called Cape Kennedy.) Predict what may have happened to him. Explain which details in the story you based your predictions on.

Final projects

The kids were able to choose their final project for the unit from a list of options. One girl illustrated scenes from the book that contrasted in atmosphere, another researched space travel from 1962 and made a timeline of interesting events. A group of two boys wrote a play based on the book and the last two girls created a travel guide complete with sights, things to do, things not to do, and things to bring.

After we finished the unit, the kids were stoked to hear that I found a copy of the spectacular made-for-TV Disney version of the movie. And by spectacular, I mean horrible. I think I spent more time asleep than watching the movie. But, the kids liked it a lot. We happened to have a 5th grader who was visiting our classroom for the first day we watched the film, but not the second. He wouldn’t leave the school until I let him borrow the movie to watch over the weekend!

Overall, it was a great unit that the kids learned a lot from. Next up we are doing Holes.