Year of the Hangman – Wrap it up! Talk to me, people.
Hello. Thanks so much to all of you who participated in The Year of the Hangman Book Discussion. I know that I learned a lot from this process, and I hope that you also thought it was a worthwhile experience. I would love to hear your feedback on the project.
Here are some questions for you to consider for feedback. Please offer an answer to as many of the questions below as possible. The more you answer of them the better, and the more thorough your answer the better. Be specific. Be clear. Be kind.
- What did you like about the project? Be specific.
- What did you not like about the project? Be specific.
- If you didn’t post often – why not?
- What did you think of the questions each week?
- Would you like to have seen a discussion on a topic from the book that I did not pose? If ‘yes’, then – What would you like to have discussed? Be specific.
- Did you perfer one big question (like the one for Week 4) or would you rather have choice from multiple questions (like we did in Weeks 1 through 3)?
- Would you like more interaction with the author?
- Did you like the additional links to learn more about some of the topics and characters in the novel?
- Would you like to do a project like this again? Why or why not?
I will be doing this sort of thing again soon with a book called The Book Without Words by Avi. Avi is author of the award winning novel Crispin: The Cross of Lead (Newberry Winner 2003). He has written more than fifty books for various audiences.
Check out the book blog for The Book Without Words at ___To Be Set Up Soon___ . I have some ideas that I think will make this book blog even more interactive so check it out.
Again, please drop me a line at moshej@browardschools.com if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions.
Thanks so much. Please post your response to the above questions to this discussion thread.
Mr. Moshé
Westpine Middle School
Sunrise, Florida
2) The thing I didn’t like most about the project was when we had to write all of the summaries. Those were so difficult to do. ONE SENTENCE was all we had to make a whole chapter summary!!! It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. Since it didn’t last I was alright with it. Even so I was still not that into it. It kind of stunk having to do that all the time. Worst of all, you never knew where they were until you got them back.
4) The questions weren’t all that difficult, however they weren’t the best things he could have done. They seemed kind of thrown together then bits and pieces added in to make it good. They were very good though.
6) The multiple choiced questions were the better to me. Since there was more than one question, I had the choices taking one or the other. I’m the kind of person who loves choices so that’s why I liked the multiple choice ones over the big one question
1) The thing that I liked most about the project was that we were able to get on the laptops and do all of the funny comics. I love drawing comics and I love getting on the computers, so I was exstatic when I found out that we had to do comic life. That was the best thing about the year of the hangman book.
2) The worst thing that
what i liked about the project is the book, at first i thought it was going to be boring but i actually liked it. I didnt like that we had to do blog discussions for it instead of actual class discussions. I never really posted, not because i didnt want to, but because i usually didnt know about the blogs until u announced in class that u were closing them, i was often absent. Even though i didnt know about them i went and read them anyways and i thought they the questions were kinda interesting, but really good. I prefer the multiple choice of questions because we had a bigger variety and alot to choose from. Honestly, i would like the project again, but without the blog discussions, and we have blog discussions then i would like it if we had a chance to write to the ones we havnt at the end of the book.
I liked the project because it was…sort of…fun! The comic life was hard at first but once you did a few and got the “rhythm” of dragging and typing in the bubbles, you were able to understand it more and create more quickly.
I didn’t really like the one sentence summaries because it was a very complicated process.
The disscussion questions, some of them, were fun. I really liked the fact that we had more than one question, that we were able to choose from, and answer. The one question in week 4 disscussion, sort of made me feel obligated to answering that ONE question, and I didn’t like that.
6. I perfer the choice of many little questions it made me think more about the book instead of just one subject.
7. It does not rewally matter to me if you can get him cool but if you dont it wont be dissapointing
8. The aditional sites i donot like because most of the time they are confusing or do not work.
9. Discussion question yes but comic life NO!!!!
1. I liked how it was different from other assignments from other teachers these are original.
2.I didnt like how sometimes you could not get on the website for multiple reasons.
3. Sometimes i do not post beacause i dont know about the blog or i cannot get on the website.
4. I think the questions were goodbecause they mad you want to read the blog and the book so you could a good grade.
5. i think you covered eerything in the book moshe.
and i’m still testing
still testing
Testing
Ummm… I’m a little confused here. What project are u talking about? If you’re talking about the book discussion, then I say to keep on going in the direction that you’re heading in. The book discussions are fun. Its easier to do the discussions online rather than in the classroom, mostly for me because I get nervous when talking to a large group. This is way more fun. Please continue to do the discussions online.
4CONTD.) Yeah I think that the questions you post are something you have to put thought into. They are real good ! For example, the one about Hurricane Katrina was a real good one.
6)I don’t really care fif you posted one big question r several little ones. It did not matter to me because I knew I had to do them in the long run and They are worth a grade but I favor the multiple choice ones.
7)I’m going to be honest with you, I really don’t care. If we sit and write something to the author it will not bother me. What would be more interesting would be if we got to talk to the author “face to face”. Have him/her come in and have a disscussion about the book.
8) What links are we talking about! Could someone plese inform me about them.!
9) I agree with Sofia. I wouldn’t mind us doing something like this again but to me there is so much more out there that we could do! This was a great project and all but could we do something out of the box? I think it would be fun! Oh Yeah! That book was good and I hope the next one is just as good!
Basically I answered most of the questions in paragraph form. I hope you can distinguish one from the other. Let me know if not.
What I liked about the project was actually the comic life, as much as it got on my nerves at first. It’s something out of the ordinary, and I prefer it to normal comprehension questions. I did not like the procedure for the one sentence summaries, as it turned out to be a big mess with no one knowing where their paper was. Sadly, I did not post on the last blog and may have gotten a 0 for the stupid reason that the blog is not the first thing on my mind when I go online. I really don’t have any preference when it comes to the questions, because I can make up good answers for all of them or just one. And yes, being an aspiring author myself and also a lover of history of all kinds, I would love to interact further with the author.
What I like most about the project is that we got to make comics for the chapters in the story and I hope that I get to finish mine.What I didn’t like about it is that some of the chapters in the story were BORING.The questions were interesting especially the one about New Orleans and the one about when we tranfered to a new school. I would like to have a choice of questions to choose to answer from. I would like interaction with the author because it is kind of cool. I would like to do a project like ths a again because once again it was fun making the comics.
Thanks for all your comments so far. I can not improve on what I’m doing unless I know what needs work. Your comments and suggestions are pointing me in the right direction.
Just a couple of reminders:
1) What did you like about the project?: I liked that we got to work with Comic Life. At first it was kind of hard but once you did one or two pages it got easier which made it fun.
2) What did you not like about the project?: I didn’t like to do the summaries. When we had to pass them to people to check, some people would hand me theirs, I would check them, and pass them on to someone else. Either the next day or the day after, they would ask me “Where’s my summary?”. I would reply with “I don’t know” and they would say something like “Well you better find it”. That was very frustrating for me.
3) If you didn’t post often – why not?: I believe I posted to all of the branches (well not the “Ask the author”). I tried to check the blog everyday to make sure that I didn’t miss any.
4) What did you think of the questions each week?: They were ok I guess.
5) Would you like to have seen a discussion on a topic from the book that I did not pose? If ‘yes’, then – What would you like to have discussed?: Nope
6) Did you perfer one big question (like the one for Week 4) or would you rather have choice from multiple questions (like we did in Weeks 1 through 3)?: I liked both. I liked the one big question because we got to write our own ending for the book and I liked the multiple questions because it gave us a chance to choose which question we liked best.
7) Would you like more interaction with the author?: Ummmmm, I don’t know.
8) Did you like the additional links to learn more about some of the topics and characters in the novel?: To be honest, I didn’t use them.
9) Would you like to do a project like this again? Why or why not?: Yes, but minus the summaries please. Like I said before, Comic Life was fun and the summaries were very frustrating.
Sorry, I pushed the enter button by accidentwhen I was typing( I make a lot of mistakes if you haven’t noticed) but anyway yeah I think the questions are good. I say that because some of the questions make you stop and think. For example, the one on the blog about New Orleans; I had to stop for a moment and think about how my friend must of felt when he saw his house turn into a worthless pile of dump. That was a good one.
6) Well the multiple choice does take a load off, espeacially when it is something easy but it dose not really matter. I think it is really up to you whether you decide you want one big one or multiple litlle ones but personally I like the multiple choice.
7) I’m going to be honest with you Mr. Moshe but it really doesn’t matter to me because I don’t care. Not to be rude or anything but I can live without writing something to the author. Now if the author came into class and we had a disscusion about the book, that would be a different story.
8) I dob’t know what you are talking about there Mr. Moshe because when I read that qquestion I could see it go right over my head. Can someone tell me waht he is talking about!
9)I agree with Sofia. It wouldn’t bother e if we did another project like this but like I said, there is so much more we could do. (This was a good book by the way.)
1) What I liked about the project was that we got work work on the computers and that we had a choice which blog question we wanted to answer.
2)What I didn’t like about the project was that we had to circulate the papers around the class and sometimes it would get lost. Another thing that I can’t make my mind up about was comic life. I t was good but i think that there is so much more we could do as a class than just paste pictures onto a blank shhet. Don’t get me wrong though, it was fun!
3)I posted always and if I missed one it is because I forgot, didn’t care or just did not understand it and forgot to ask you what it meant. But I think I posted to all of them.
4)I think that the questions that you posted are AWSOME!
1) What did you like about the project? Be specific.
I think that the project made us [the readers] think outside the box. Rather than usual comprehension questions, we were able to take events that happened in the story and put them into use in a way that we can relate.
2) What did you not like about the project? Be specific.
I often forgot to check on the blog for new discussion questions, and I wasn’t sure how long we had to answer an specific set of questions. Clear deadlines would be nice.
3) If you didn’t post often – why not?
I either forgot that we had blog (sometimes I need constant reminder) but other than that I posted always.
4) What did you think of the questions each week?
The questions made me think broader and they gave me the chance to give more thorough answers, they also made me think differently than the usual “what is the story about?”
5) Would you like to have seen a discussion on a topic from the book that I did not pose? If ‘yes’, then – What would you like to have discussed? Be specific.
N/A
6) Did you perfer one big question (like the one for Week 4) or would you rather have choice from multiple questions (like we did in Weeks 1 through 3)?
A choice of multiple questions is better because it gives you choices, and when you are given choices you take them. It gives you a chance to see what you like and what you can put more effort into.
7) Would you like more interaction with the author? It would be nice but it’s no necessary especially if he is busy with other stuff. But it’d be nice to have the person who wrote the book putting some input into the minds of the readers.
8) Did you like the additional links to learn more about some of the topics and characters in the novel?
Yes, they were rather helpful when answering questions.
9)Would you like to do a project like this again? Why or why not?
I wouldn’t mind, the project was simple yet challenging. It didn’t involve too much work but yes involvment and cooperation.