Literature Exhibitions
Working with seventh graders on their Literature Exhibitions is one of my favorite things about teaching language arts. In some ways, it is hard to believe we are already working on our final exhibition of the year. And yet, as we are researching, planning, writing, and creating, it is easy to see just how much we have learned this year.
About the Literature Exhibition
There are three main parts to this exhibition:
As they re-read their books, students studied literary terms, and they made plot diagrams and venn diagrams to visualize their thinking and identify similarities and differences.
What's happening now?
We are now about two weeks away from the exhibition, and we are well into the drafting process. This is the moment where all the work we have done in seventh grade language arts really starts to show. Seventh graders are now expert essay writers. They allowed themselves the freedom to write messy, disorganized first drafts. Now, as they work on their second drafts, students are thinking about revisions.
This drafting process is important because it provides students with opportunities to step back from their work and play around with the order of their ideas, their word choice, and their use of quotes as evidence. Students are making hard choices about how to divide their ideas into paragraphs that develop their thesis statements over time, and they are considering how transitions between ideas and between paragraphs will guide the reader through their essays.
While we are drafting essays in the classroom, students are also starting their work on artifacts that will develop and extend their ideas through the use of digital media, art, creative writing, and music. I always challenge seventh grade students to consider how they can use their interests, talents, and hobbies in the design of their artifacts. This year, the artifacts include: a movie, an original musical composition, and a choose your own adventure story.
What books are we comparing?
Check out the books seventh graders have chosen for their Literature Exhibitions:
I encourage you to read the books we are reading!
Seventh graders will present their Literature Exhibitions on June 8th. They will complete their on-demand essays on June 9th.
About the Literature Exhibition
There are three main parts to this exhibition:
- A comparison and contrast literary analysis essay
- A presentation that includes an artifact
- An on-demand essay
As they re-read their books, students studied literary terms, and they made plot diagrams and venn diagrams to visualize their thinking and identify similarities and differences.
What's happening now?
We are now about two weeks away from the exhibition, and we are well into the drafting process. This is the moment where all the work we have done in seventh grade language arts really starts to show. Seventh graders are now expert essay writers. They allowed themselves the freedom to write messy, disorganized first drafts. Now, as they work on their second drafts, students are thinking about revisions.
This drafting process is important because it provides students with opportunities to step back from their work and play around with the order of their ideas, their word choice, and their use of quotes as evidence. Students are making hard choices about how to divide their ideas into paragraphs that develop their thesis statements over time, and they are considering how transitions between ideas and between paragraphs will guide the reader through their essays.
While we are drafting essays in the classroom, students are also starting their work on artifacts that will develop and extend their ideas through the use of digital media, art, creative writing, and music. I always challenge seventh grade students to consider how they can use their interests, talents, and hobbies in the design of their artifacts. This year, the artifacts include: a movie, an original musical composition, and a choose your own adventure story.
What books are we comparing?
Check out the books seventh graders have chosen for their Literature Exhibitions:
- Wonder and Out of My Mind
- Love that Dog and Crossover
- Finding Audrey and Lost in the Sun
- Nothing to Fear and On My Honor
- The Life of Pi and The Martian
- A Summer to Die and Orbiting Jupiter
- Wonder and El Deafo
- Heat and The Outsiders
- The Giver and Divergent
- Bridge to Terabithia and Orbiting Jupiter
- The Book Thief and To Kill a Mockingbird
- Holes and Chomp
- Okay for Now and The Outsiders
- The Outsiders and Stargirl
- We Were Liars and Thirteen Reasons Why
- Monster and Kingdom Come
I encourage you to read the books we are reading!
Seventh graders will present their Literature Exhibitions on June 8th. They will complete their on-demand essays on June 9th.