Persepolis remains one of my favorite books to teach. The kids -- the same kids who struggled through
Fahrenheit 451 -- can take a whole page and make inferences like crazy about author's purpose and how her techniques create meaning. At the same time, I love how its ideas match so well with
F451... we had the kids mark for three motifs in
F451: ignorance vs. knowledge, rebellion vs. conformity, and the influence of technology and, even though we didn't ask for it, they're naturally using those three motifs as springboards for their analysis of
Persepolis. "Oh", they might say, "That's another example of conformity, isn't it?" and me, taken aback because it wasn't what I had asked them to do but, somehow, they're synthesizing the themes in Bradbury's dystopian futuristic novel with Satrapi's non-fiction memoir. It's actually quite wonderful.
I've finally written the rest of my unit plan, which sees us completing more analytic assignments this week and, next week, watching the excellent film adaptation. We're going to use a film review at the end -- perhaps
Roger Ebert's, perhaps
Slant Magazine's-- to work in another informational text into the unit.
Feeling good about it all...
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