Intro & Themes
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon is a murder mystery novel written from the perspective of a child with Asperger’s Syndrome. This unique narrative has grown in popularity in various school boards in Ontario for bringing social awareness about disabilities. As educators, we strive to accommodate unique exceptionalities in our classrooms to make them as inclusive as possible. In doing so it is our responsibility to educate students about various exceptionalities and establish a safe and embracing learning community. Although the book draws light on disabilities, it serves more as a vehicle for the themes in which this unit will focus on.
Autism is both the lens (narration) and filter (how and what the audience reads), yet autism is never explicitly mentioned in the novel. Christopher’s coming of age (bildungsroman) lends to themes such as, finding independence and one’s role in the world, the treatment of “difference”, finding order through chaos, and various other subthemes and motifs. Students will be able to make personal connections and meaning of the text. Moreover, the text will provoke students to identify Christopher and recognize the same challenges and issues they face coming in and out of adolescence.
Curricular Connections
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is on the list of novels currently being taught by the Thames Valley District School Board. We have chosen to place this unit in the grade 11 college preparation course because the text is a fairly easy read, but is rich in content. Its flexibility allows for us to better accommodate students with exceptionalities in our class. The use of profanity in the book also demands for a mature audience. The grade 11 college preparation curriculum focuses on establishing appropriate style and the use of appropriate language effectively, which is a primary focus in the unit plan.
Media Literacy accounts for a large portion of the grade 11 English curriculum. It is important that students know how to be critical of the messages around them. The unit draws on various forms of media (magazine, video, website, etc.) to develop critical literacy skills and promote students to be conscious of the messages constructed. Developing visual literacy provokes students to reflect on and critique the production of a range of visual texts in their everyday lives (Rowswell, McLean, and Hamilton, 2012). The goal is to have students identify explicit and implicit messages in media works and be able to explain how the form, style, and language of a variety of media forms communicate messages with specific social implications.
The unit will be placed roughly a month into the course. It is an excellent novel to use as a starting point to get to know the learning styles and preferences of your students. Prior to the novel, the focus would be on reading shorter texts (short stories, poems, etc.) and having students do a variety of writing activities that are low-risk and again allow us to familiarize ourselves with our students and encourage them to express themselves in a safe community.
Note: For specific curriculum expectations, please refer to the "curriculum" tab under the "more..." tab.
Pedagogical Practices
A teacher’s duty is not simply to dispense prescribed knowledge, but rather facilitate student-centered learning. Our student-centered approach was highly influenced by K&J Strickland’s article “A Transactional Philosophy of Learning”. Students should be responsible and accountable for developing their own meaning. Whole language classroom place an emphasis on meaning and “making sense” in oral and written communications (Strickland, 1993). This philosophy also extends to the belief that reading, writing, and communication should not be treated or taught individually, but rather interconnected.
Collaborative learning allows the teacher to facilitate learning and encourage students to construct their own knowledge. We have developed literature circles so that students can socially construct knowledge by sharing textual interpretations through informal and formal writing and other performances (Broz, 2011). Collaborative learning also teaches students how to set common goals and work towards achieving these goals. Furthermore, this approach lends itself to incorporating differentiated instruction.
Differentiated instruction played an important role in shaping what we wanted our lessons and activities to look like. We want to provide students with a variety of tasks and activities that accommodate different learners (kinesthetic, auditory, and visual). Web 2.0 resources such as Glogster, Bitstrips, and moviemaker cater to different learning styles by connecting audio and visual aspects. Students are given the creative freedom to present information and demonstrate their learning, regardless of artistic talent. Students can move from the passive role as consumers of messages to actively constructing their own messages.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon is a murder mystery novel written from the perspective of a child with Asperger’s Syndrome. This unique narrative has grown in popularity in various school boards in Ontario for bringing social awareness about disabilities. As educators, we strive to accommodate unique exceptionalities in our classrooms to make them as inclusive as possible. In doing so it is our responsibility to educate students about various exceptionalities and establish a safe and embracing learning community. Although the book draws light on disabilities, it serves more as a vehicle for the themes in which this unit will focus on.
Autism is both the lens (narration) and filter (how and what the audience reads), yet autism is never explicitly mentioned in the novel. Christopher’s coming of age (bildungsroman) lends to themes such as, finding independence and one’s role in the world, the treatment of “difference”, finding order through chaos, and various other subthemes and motifs. Students will be able to make personal connections and meaning of the text. Moreover, the text will provoke students to identify Christopher and recognize the same challenges and issues they face coming in and out of adolescence.
Curricular Connections
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is on the list of novels currently being taught by the Thames Valley District School Board. We have chosen to place this unit in the grade 11 college preparation course because the text is a fairly easy read, but is rich in content. Its flexibility allows for us to better accommodate students with exceptionalities in our class. The use of profanity in the book also demands for a mature audience. The grade 11 college preparation curriculum focuses on establishing appropriate style and the use of appropriate language effectively, which is a primary focus in the unit plan.
Media Literacy accounts for a large portion of the grade 11 English curriculum. It is important that students know how to be critical of the messages around them. The unit draws on various forms of media (magazine, video, website, etc.) to develop critical literacy skills and promote students to be conscious of the messages constructed. Developing visual literacy provokes students to reflect on and critique the production of a range of visual texts in their everyday lives (Rowswell, McLean, and Hamilton, 2012). The goal is to have students identify explicit and implicit messages in media works and be able to explain how the form, style, and language of a variety of media forms communicate messages with specific social implications.
The unit will be placed roughly a month into the course. It is an excellent novel to use as a starting point to get to know the learning styles and preferences of your students. Prior to the novel, the focus would be on reading shorter texts (short stories, poems, etc.) and having students do a variety of writing activities that are low-risk and again allow us to familiarize ourselves with our students and encourage them to express themselves in a safe community.
Note: For specific curriculum expectations, please refer to the "curriculum" tab under the "more..." tab.
Pedagogical Practices
A teacher’s duty is not simply to dispense prescribed knowledge, but rather facilitate student-centered learning. Our student-centered approach was highly influenced by K&J Strickland’s article “A Transactional Philosophy of Learning”. Students should be responsible and accountable for developing their own meaning. Whole language classroom place an emphasis on meaning and “making sense” in oral and written communications (Strickland, 1993). This philosophy also extends to the belief that reading, writing, and communication should not be treated or taught individually, but rather interconnected.
Collaborative learning allows the teacher to facilitate learning and encourage students to construct their own knowledge. We have developed literature circles so that students can socially construct knowledge by sharing textual interpretations through informal and formal writing and other performances (Broz, 2011). Collaborative learning also teaches students how to set common goals and work towards achieving these goals. Furthermore, this approach lends itself to incorporating differentiated instruction.
Differentiated instruction played an important role in shaping what we wanted our lessons and activities to look like. We want to provide students with a variety of tasks and activities that accommodate different learners (kinesthetic, auditory, and visual). Web 2.0 resources such as Glogster, Bitstrips, and moviemaker cater to different learning styles by connecting audio and visual aspects. Students are given the creative freedom to present information and demonstrate their learning, regardless of artistic talent. Students can move from the passive role as consumers of messages to actively constructing their own messages.