Friday, September 15, 2017

Announcements and Reminders:

Targets for Today:   I can read for enjoyment, and participate in discussions about literature.

Today’s  Agenda:  Pick up your composition books.   1. Read from your choice of books.  2. Practice your Rithmatics skills, or play tic-tac-toe or dots and boxes.  3. Read from The Rithmatist with a reading guide and questions.

If You Were Absent:  See above.

Reading Guide Questions and Answers:

Chapter 14
1. Why is the book called The Rithmatist?  Notice that it is not The Rithmatists.  Who do you think is The Rithmatist?  Why?   
Is "The Rithatist" the hero or the villain?

Read pages 195 – 198, then answer these questions:

2.   Is Joel right when he said that “We’re all freaks sometimes” ?  Explain your answer.

Answers will vary.

3. Would you have gone into Nalazar’s office had you been Joel?  

Answers will vary.

Read pages 199 – 205, then answer these questions:

4. What did Joel find out about why his mother works such long hours?

His father had left debts  to ". . .  the kind of men you [can't] ignore when they come asking for payment[Sanderson 202]." 

5.  At the end of chapter 14, why are people rushing about?  

There had been a third disappearance. 

6. Instructing Chalklings:

Draw your own set of instructions for a chalkling.  (page 209)

Read through page 214, then answer this question:

7.  Professor Fitch tells Joel that school is about  ---- 

"learning to learn."

Read through page 215, then answer this question:

8.  Harding and Fitch suggest two reasons for the attacks on the young people. What are they?

-- political -- to stir up trouble among the United Isles 

-- a rogue organization trying to build its own army of Rithmatists 

Read through the end of Chapter 15 and through Chapter 16, jotting down some of the main clues they find and/or some of the questions Joel, Harding, and Fitch are asking about the crime scene.

For example, is the  swirling line connected to the deaths of the four men? 

How many people were there who were attacking? (footprints for only one)

Why was one of the swirling lines unfinished?
If they are kidnapping the Rithmatists, how are they getting them out of the room or house?

How can chalklings return to life after they are destroyed?  Why don't they keep their forms?  

They are calling the antagonist "The Scribbler."

Vocabulary: