On Monday, students began the process of determining the topic and theme of The Old Man and the Sea. Students practiced determining the topics and themes of a variety of picture books a few weeks ago. They applied this knowledge to The Old Man and the Sea and came up with some thoughtful ideas for the story's topic and theme.
On Thursday, students were hard at work locating quotations and other passages in the story that supported one of the story's main themes and explaining how these passages supported the theme. This is a process that students will continue to practice in 8th grade and in high school. Thursday's lesson served as an introduction for them.
We ended the week by watching a film version of The Old Man and the Sea. While there are a few film versions of this story, the one I showed my students was an animated version created by Alexander Petrov. Petrov spent two and half years creating thousands of hand-painted illustrations on glass in order to make the film. Pretty amazing stuff. Following the movie, we discussed what we liked about this version of the story, what details were missing from the story, and whether or not the story's themes were as obvious in this version as they were in the novella.
Students will begin reading and writing poetry next week! They should also continue reading their biography and completing their graphic organizer because it is due Friday, May 22nd.
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