The Stories They Tell
Submitted by zchase on Tue, 05/19/2009 - 19:17.
During our study of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried and the Grade 11 essential question, "What the relationship between the self and a changing world?" we wanted our students to consider how they may have changed since entering high school. As such, each G11 student was paired with a new G9 student. The G11s were charged with interviewing their underclassmen for a story that would prove interesting to a larger audience.
The project grew out of many discussions with returning SLA students who admitted not having a chance to get to know the new 9th graders. Academically, it was aimed at having students see how truth was formed in O'Brien's text and where the gray line was for their own interviews.
The results were interesting. An unexpected benefit was the collective reaction from the G9 students about how the G11s asked questions. Each of the G11 students commented on the ease or extreme difficulty of coaxing a story from their partnered interviewee. In the end, the project was a success.
