Holes

by Louis Sachar

A Novel Study 

Days 4-5

Objective:

	To understand what a palindrome is.
	To realize that the main character in the novel, Stanly Yelnats, name is a palindrome.
	To be able to find other palindromes in their own readings and language.
	To be able to write palindromes in both words and sentences and share with their classmates.

Illinois Standards:

	1A.3a Apply knowledge of word origins and derivations to comprehend words used in specific content areas (e.g. scientific, political, literary, mathematical.)
	2. A.3a Identify and analyze a variety of literary techniques (e.g., figurative language, allusion, dialogue, description, word choice, dialect) within classical and contemporary works representing a variety of genres.

Materials

	Smart Board projection or computer able to project for whole class viewing.
	Scrap paper for students to write on.
	Group students in groups of three.
	“Pop” would make a good reward for the group that comes up with a good palindrome or a tootsie roll “pop”.
	A set of magnetic letters for spelling words.

Procedures:

Day 4:

	Write Stanley Yelnats name up on the board and ask the student to think a minutes and write down what they notice was odd about this boy’s name. Allow only a fee minutes to pass, you may want to play the music from the movie Holes in the background at this time. If no one has guessed, use the magnet letters and spell Stanley.
	Then simply move the letters as they watch and spell Yelnats with the same letters. As they visually see this movement they will get the idea. Then explain that this is actually called a certain kind of word in our language, a Palindrome.
	We will be working with palindromes today. In your group see how many palindromes you can come up with that have only 3 letters. Set the timer for 5 minutes. You may want to get a set of movable magnetic letters for each team, or they could draw them on paper so that they could move them around. Then go for 4 and 5 letter words.
	Now on the Smart board go to Once Upon a Palindrome http://members.cox.net/jjschnebel/palin.html And see if they can solve a story using palindromes from what they have learned.

Day 5:

	Review what they learned yesterday about Palindromes
	Go to the web site about palindromes and read a few palindromes that are sentences that are the same when read forwards or backwards. http://www.derf.net/palindromes/old.palindrome.html#STANDARD
	Divide the students into groups and see if they can make a palindrome.
	When they have shared their sentence palindrome use the smart board to display Chapter 2 of the palindrome story from yesterday http://members.cox.net/jjschnebel/palin.html

Assessment:

Teacher will assess cooperation and participation in the group activities with the rubric included in this unit.  Website: http://www.teach-nology.com/cgi-bin/teamwork.cgi