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    Texting the classics

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October 18, 2009

Video: Russell students text classic novel

MIKE JAMES

It was an assignment Tom Sawyer would have loved.

RUSSELL--It involved bringing forbidden materials into the classroom and using them to re-tell his own story.

The students in Kim Dearing’s sophomore English class at Russell High School brought their cell phones in and used their text-messaging features to write new lines of dialogue between characters in the classic novel of boyhood mischief.

They didn’t have to sneak the phones in, however. Dearing got a special dispensation to allow the devices, which normally are prohibited.

Groups of students worked together to create conversations between characters, using their cell phones.

Once such scenario involved Tom and Sid and what they might have had to say to one another after Sid tipped Aunt Polly to Tom’s skipping school.

In another, Tom and his friend Joe Harper traded their thoughts on the new girl in town — Becky Thatcher.

The exercise brought the characters to life for 21st century kids, most of whom were reading the novel for the first time. “We can take something that happened years ago and translate it into modern language,” Bri Fannin said. “It makes us think about it in a different way. We relate to them better.”

The limitations of texting — 300 characters at a time — and the six-minute time limit Dearing imposed for each created conversation, forced the students to focus their thoughts and required economy of word usage.

Exploration of character and motivation was the goal. Dearing brought the cell phones into the picture because they’re the tools teenagers use every day. “Brain research shows that this generation learns differently. They need the technology,” said Dearing.

Dearing provided two- and three-sentence prompts to set the scene. Then Blackberries and iPods whipped out and thumbs danced on keypads.

Imagining, for instance, Tom’s reaction when sentenced to whitewash the fence, and then crafting his conversation with Sid, fleshed out the characters in the minds of the students. “We see how Tom would act in that situation,” Taylor Brewer said. “He’s short-tempered, rebellious and strong-willed.”

The students are graded on the exercise, which replaces a quiz.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2652.

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