Kyle's Blog

Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, ‘cause “the West is best.” And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and night of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.                  --Alexander Supertramp, May 1992.             I chose this quote for a number of reasons. It comes at a major point in the story when McCandless is entering ‘the Great White North’ and highlights both his journey so far and his excitement f...

4/26 Into the Wild blog             The book I chose for this week is Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. For those that do not know,  Into the Wild is the true story of Christopher McCandless, a graduate of Emory College who decides to give up his all communications with his family, donate all his money to charity, and hitchhike across the Western United States. He adopts an alias, has a few run-ins with the law, and eventually makes it to Alaska and spends more than 100 days in the Alaskan wilderness. Throughout the book, we see that McCandless has a drive to reinvent his life and live on his own terms. He is greatly influenced by Thoreau, Emerson, London and other “self-made,” transcendentalist-type writers and his diary is full of quotes from them. The book is the ultimate struggle of man versus nature and McCandless’s efforts to live simply and embody the ideals of his favorite transcendentalist writers.   ...

Teacher: Kyle Morrill Novel: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini Grade: 11 Lesson: Socratic Circle – Chapters 1-5 Material needed: ·          Class set of The Kite Runner ·          Students’ notes ·          Individual desks Learning objectives: ·          Students will learn to analyze literature by citing text and engage in discussion with peers ·          Student will strengthen their understanding of literary terms like suspense, atmosphere/mood, and plot/setting. NOTE: Due to the graphic nature of some parts of the novel, teacher must get approval before reading The Kite Runner . Procedure: ·          Divide students into two groups. Arrange the desks such that one group of students forms the inner ring and the...

Lesson 1  Teacher: Kyle Morrill Novel: The Outsiders  by S.E. Hinton Lesson: #TheOutsiders Grade: 7 Timeframe: Ongoing while class reads The Outsiders Materials needed: ·          Internet access: either smartphone or computer with access to Twitter ·          Class set of The Outsiders Learning Objective: ·          Students will learn how to use social media (Twitter) responsibly ·          Students will engage in thoughtful questioning and answering techniques to gain a deeper understanding of the novel. NOTE: Social media use in school is a contentious issue. Check with your administrator or district for clearance before using this lesson. Procedure: ·          1.  Before beginning a class reading of The Outsiders , discuss appropriate and responsi...

Discussion Strategies Activities             For the first activity, I decided to create a list of discussion questions for Chapters 1-5 of Hatchet . These would be used in the “Pose-Pause-Pounce-Bounce” technique to stimulate a conversation about the early parts of the book. 1.       Pre-reading: If you were stuck on a deserted island, what one item would you bring and why? 2.         Chapter One: What do you think “The Secret” is? 3.       Chapter Two: Brian says he has two options; wait to run out of fuel or increase his speed and crash sooner. What are the advantages/disadvantages of each? Does he have any other options? 4.       Chapter Three: Have you ever had a near death experience? 5.       Chapter Four: Why do you think the author starts Chapter 4 with Brian’s memory/flashback? 6. ...

Discussion Strategies Blog THUNKING The first discussion strategy I researched is “thunking.” This strategy uses very simple questions that are designed to spark higher order thinking. They can be connected to a specific topic, or simply to stimulate an interesting and engaging discussion. One thunk in particular that I found from the provided website asked the following question: “If you steal something for a friend in need, are you still breaking the law?” This got me thinking about the book I read for last week’s assignment, Shiloh . One of the main themes of the book is right versus wrong. The main character, Marty, struggles with the conflict of keeping the dog Shiloh to protect him or abiding by the law and giving Shiloh back to his abusive owner, Judd Travers. It brings up unlimited topics about right/wrong and good/evil. My freshman year of college I took a college writing course title “The Search for Right and Wrong.” Our big assignment of the semester was a 20 page r...