I am currently leading a literacy circle with Hackley students, and we are sharing A Wrinkle in Time. These are a few excerpts of postings that have been made so far, and I hope they give you a better idea of what the experience is like for the participants. If you think you may want to sign your child up for the one of the next two circles, just let me know.
….After reading chapter one, I would like you to list a few questions that you have about what you have read. Remember that good readers are constantly asking good, well rooted questions from the text. Questions drive our curiosity and stamina going forward, help us to make connections as we go and also commit us to becoming an active participant in the text. An example of a question that I am wondering is: Why is Charles Wallace so different than the average five year old? Some examples of his “non-averageness” would be his elevated speech patterns, his ability to maneuver in a kitchen, his ability to know what Meg is thinking/doing…. and I’m also wondering why why isn’t he in school? I thought it was very interesting that Meg had gotten hurt defending him, as others called him dumb, when he is clearly not. Perhaps this was one of the first lessons that the author is trying to teach us: to not judge a book by it’s cover. Because he didn’t speak in front of others, he was perceived to be of lesser intelligence; however it is quite the opposite that is true. His family knew how “smart” he was (and I think we will revisit the idea of being smart and what it means to each of us as we continue reading) through their own interactions and some IQ testing his parents had done on him, but they did not do anything to change the publics perceptions of him.
…..I’ve wondered often how these amazing visions or thoughts come to talented authors like L’Engle; and how they cultivate their writing seeds to make them bloom into beautiful gardens on the page. I imagine that it can be much like our own writing process when we are in writing workshop in the classroom, and we are gathering our own writing seeds for our journals and notebooks. Anything can give us inspiration- quotes, pictures, friends, other books that we have read. That is why it is so important that as writers, we are also readers of many books and careful observers of the world around us.