34.1. Introduction to Reading Workshop/"What is Beauty?"

Objective: To read and comprehend texts at the high-complexity end of the Middle School reading list.

Introduction: We've completed all of the reading skills that we need to already. However, the most important activity that a person in school can do is read, so we're not going to stop reading. While our academic skills will focus on speaking, listening, the visual presentation of information, and formal and sophisticated writing, we'll spend the rest of our reading time on what is probably the biggest stumbling block to a normal, smart student to succeeding in school -- dealing with difficult texts.

First Activity: Independent reading for 30 minutes.

Second Activity: Next, we want to gather materials for our investigation into beauty. After you've finished the reading section, look around on the internet for images. We want ones that you find especially beautiful, or ugly, or simply striking visually in some way that you can't put your finger on. Email them to me, and I will collate them into a slideshow.

Rules:
1. No people. We're after the formal rules of beauty, separated from our own personal feelings about beautiful humans. There's no quicker way to ruin a smart conversation on beauty with teenagers by asking them what kind of person they think is beautiful. The rules that we discover about objects, scenes, or artworks will apply to people, too, so we don't have to focus on them and risk distraction.
2. No animals. Animals are beautiful, mind you, they just also tend to trigger the "awww . . . that's so PRECIOUS" reaction in people, and that's specifically not what we want to focus on. Kittens and puppies have little heads and big eyes -- mammals are programmed to like little heads with big eyes (to make us okay with all the work that our babies require), so we love little animals. We tend to love puppies, kittens, and little creatures like babies or chinchillas so much that we can't think about them clearly.
3. Nothing inappropriate or controversial. This should be one of those, "duh," things, but just in case.  We want to clear our minds of all of the prejudices that we bring into the room with us from our outside lives. In order to do that, we'll need to focus on things where we don't have strong feelings to begin with. After you decide what you think is beautiful to you when we're done with our unit, you may apply your newfound understanding to whatever you wish.