SEEK Department > Community of Readers - Rise to Rebellion - Faculty Guide
COMMUNITY OF READERS
Benchmark Assignments
Rise to Rebellion by Jeff Shaara
Notes for Faculty leading the Rise to Rebellion discussion groups.
1. Elicit students' reaction to Shaara's Rise to Rebellion.
Question why they liked or didn't like reading the book.
Model how to discuss the pros and cons of a book. (5 -10 minutes)
2. Remind students that they will encounter reading assignments that are long or difficult to read.
Ask for suggestions of strategies that are helpful dealing with an arduous assignment.
Remind the students about previewing the text, writing questions as they read, checking out reviews on Lexus-Nexus,
checking the Web. (10 - 15 minutes)
Shaara doesn't move through the narrative from a single point of view,
but rather the events in the chronology are repeated from various perspectives.
Because he is describing a philosophical process as well as the first steps in a revolution,
some readers may have had difficulty with the chronology and the characters (not Shaara's strength).
He does give a thumbnail sketch of what happened to the major players at the end,
something that might have been helpful to read at the beginning.
3. Ask the students to take a few minutes to brainstorm in groups of no more than 3 to write
two or three interpretive or evaluative questions for discussion. Share the questions and discuss
the relative merits of the different questions as interpretive or evaluative. (15 - 20 minutes)
An Interpretive Question permits more than one possible answer
from a reasonable understanding of the text. For example, "Why did Washington ride his horse
into the crowd watching the two volunteer soldiers fighting?"
An Evaluative Question moves beyond the text and asks for a discussion of larger issues.
"How do the tensions between Franklin and his son, William, reflect larger issues of parents and children?"
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