Lord of the Flies, Interactively

William Golding's first novel, Lord of the Flies, was originally published in 1954 and quickly became a world-wide bestseller and admitted favorite of many modern day authors. Golding was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature and is to this day probably one of the few Prize winners in Lit that I've actually read! Sorry, my fellow Reading and Language Arts teachers!

If you're a fan of LOTF, or if you're using this book with your classes, I highly recommend you play the Lord of the Flies Game. According to the Nobel Prize site where the game is hosted,

this game presents one possible interpretation of Golding's book, which is no more legitimate than any other. As Golding himself claimed, "The right interpretation is the one that rises to the reader the first time he reads the book."

The aim of this game is to analyze symbolism and characterization in the novel. A great refresher before an end-of-book test!

(According to a post at Mental Floss titled 15 Famous People Who Used to Teach, "The author’s experiences as a teacher helped inform the novel that made his career. He once allowed a class of boys to debate with complete freedom, and the classroom quickly devolved into such disorder that it inspired Golding to write Lord of the Flies." Yeah... I can totally see that).

ADDED 12/31/09 Here's an interactive sequencing activity for LOTF which could be used as a nice group review on an interactive whiteboard.

For those of you interested in the Nobel Prize angle, you may want to check out the picture book The Man Behind the Peace Prize: Alfred Nobel, a short yet intriguing account of man who invented dynamite. From the inside cover:

Alred Nobel was born in Sweden in 1833. A quick and curious mind, combined with a love of science and chemistry, drove him to invent numerous technological devices throughout his long life. But he is perhaps most well known for his invention of dynamite.

Intending it to help safely advance road and bridge construction, Nobel saw his most famous invention used in the development of military weaponry. A reading a newspaper headline mistakenly announcing his death, Nobel was inspired to leave a legacy of another sort.

Even high school students will appreciate how effectively the concise picture book format captures Nobel's life story. As an extension activity, students could research a winner of the Peace Prize (all listed in the back of the book) and create a similar picture book-like recounting, using an easy online publishing program such as Tikatok.


Interested in other extension ideas? Be sure to visit the publisher's site for the free, downloadable teaching guide to accompany the book.

Classics Online

There are hundreds of sites online that allow you to read public domain classics such as 1984 and Paradise Lost. If Google is any measure, the search phrase "Read Classic Literature Online" serves up 321 results, and "Read Classics Online" serves up 5,740.

If you're looking for the best site of its kind, I highly recommend ReadPrint. Unlike other literary classics sites, ReadPrint is incredibly lean and clean, with a modern interface with no annoying ads or upsells. Over 8,000 books by 3,500 authors available at your fingertips.

Like most other sites, you can search by either author, title, or writing type (essay, fiction, nonfiction, play, short story, poem). But what's really nice is that ReadPrint also provides you the author's biography and selected quotes. The quotes alone are worth the visit! I found myself reading through dozens of these, thinking how each could be used as a great thinking prompt at the start of class.

What happens so often as we get involved with new writers and new books is we forget how terrific the "old school stuff" really is. Take this character description from the opening page of Treasure Island as an example:

I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow--a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cover and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards:

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!" in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped on the door with a bit of stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared, called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought to him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard.

"This is a handy cove," says he at length; "and a pleasant sittyated grog-shop. Much company, mate?"

My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity.

"Well, then," said he, "this is the berth for me. Here you, matey," he cried to the man who trundled the barrow; "bring up alongside and help up my chest. I'll stay here a bit," he continued. "I'm a plain man; rum and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch ships off. What you mought call me? You mought call me captain. Oh, I see what you're at-- there"; and he threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold. "You can tell me when I've worked through that," says he, looking as fierce as a commander.

Arr, that be good writin.' And there's plenty more where that came from. Give ReadPrint a visit; it's sure to become your go-to site for classical inspiration.

Two Hot Resources

By sending you over to Literacy is Priceless, I'm hooking you up with two hot resources. First of all, that blog itself. Lots of web and tech resources for bringing literacy into the 21st Century.

Second is the topic of that post, which is the Shmoop website. Shmoop is a fabulous collection of resources in the areas of literature, history, and poetry. I love free stuff! But at this site I especially appreciate the section of each resource called "Why Should I Care?" Next to free stuff, I love relevance!

"Why should we care about this stuff?" is the grunted (yet valid) motto of every middle and high school student, and these well-written and funny selections answer that question (for example, check out the Why Should I Care? for 1984).

Plan to spend some time there.

Reading Strategy: Quote Analysis

Grade 5 teacher Jan emailed to say, "My students want to read and read and read, and it seems that they're rarely slowing down to think about what they're actually reading. Is there one simple thing I can try (immediately!) to get them to think more about what they're reading?"

I'll assume that we're talking about fiction, and for starters I would recommend using quote analysis. Quote analysis is certainly nothing new; I used it informally for years before seeing it in a Resource Room lesson plan for Holes a few years back. I like the format presented there; it makes sense, and it's readily internalized by students. (Click on that link above to check out Susan Jones' four steps for yourself).

The activity doesn't end there, of course. This analysis leads to discussion about the character:

• What does this quote tell us about this character's traits?
• Is this behavior consistent with what we've seen so far, or is this a change?
• If the character is changing, what factors or variables are bringing on these changes?
• Think of the audience for this quote. What might be their reaction?
• How does this quote advance the plot?
• What future actions might occur as a result of these words?
• Say the words aloud. Can we "hear" different interpretations of the message depending upon how it's said? (Have students alternately emphasize one word over the others).

You can download a recent quote analysis sheet I used for Swindle and adapt it for use with your own novel. Again, I take no credit for this strategy or format, but recommend it whole-heartedly.

Have another idea for Jan's speedy readers? Leave a comment or drop me a line.