A Wonder Fair

One of our favorite deep-dive explorations this fall was into the novel Wonder by RJ Palacio. We read carefully for symbolism, character change, and analysis of theme. Together we've discussed our ideas with evidence from the novel, often returning to the book to reread a passage to answer our questions about character motivation or various perspectives. We continued our journey into the sequel novel, Auggie & Me, as we read the Julian Chapter and sought to understand the antagonist's point of view. Reading about Daisy's death, the family pet, we cried together and asked the ourselves about the author's choice. Attending the premiere of the movie was another highlight, one that led to many discussions, additional insight, and a general feeling that the book is better than the movie.

Our concluding experience with this book was to create a claim statement and support it with evidence from the book. We used active listening skills to help each other find the heart of our claim by asking questions that caused the speaker to dig deeper into their thinking. A few of our claims were: Julian's actions reflect his family's values; There is more to Auggie than his appearance; Bear symbolizes a new start; and Auggie is like the sled. We created models to represent our claim and evidence and then presented them to Mrs. Duden's class. Our greatest challenge was presenting them to our parents at home, and asking them to engage in one of our Thinking Routines.

Always finding our parents' voice as a source of insight into our learning, we reflected deeply on our parents' thoughtful and authentic questions and statements. Below are some examples of how we were inspired by our parents' thoughts around our learning.

"My mom's question, 'Is the book about friendship?' makes me think the book is only focused on Auggie. It is also focused on keeping friends and making the right friends."

"Mom's statement, 'It doesn't matter how you look, there is no connection between how you look and who you are.' It makes me think, how am I going to apply this to my life?"

"My mom's statement, 'I normally think of family values as positive, and your first three examples are negative. I'm wondering why that stuck out to you?' My first thoughts lead me to agree with my mom. Family values are usually positive. Once I thought like them, I understood that their family value are positive in their eyes. I wonder if everyone in the book knew each other's values and why they were their values, if everyone would be a little kinder to each other."