Comm Arts students completed their first unit test. Though, at times, the students in this class feel discouraged or frustrated because the progress they are making seems slow, it IS progress nonetheless. I am pleased with the results of the work that I've been seeing overall, and I am trying to convince the students that diligence and everyday SMALL efforts are what will yield the largest results at the end of the day.
We have begun our "Exploring Conflicts" unit with defining the types of conflict we encounter in stories:
person v. self
person v. person
person v. society
person v. nature
person v. the divine
We have also been paying particular attention to the arc of a plot:
exposition
complication
climax
resolution
It is in the complication of the plot that we may find the type of conflict that the story is exploring.
We have read two Japanese folktales, "A Promise Kept" and "A Promise Broken," which represent the first two conflict types. We are in the process of reading "Thank You, Ma'm" by Langston Hughes in which we see both the person v. person and person v. society conflict types. And will will shortly begin our first longer reading selection, "Hatchet," in which we will explore the person v. nature conflict.
