Ready for the DIVERGENT movie!

So, it's Divergent movie time!!! My staff and students are so excited. We had our t-shirt decorating day last week and it was way more successful (and stressful!) than I anticipated. I had over 25 students attend the after school event and more come in at lunch throughout the week. Check out some of the awesome shirts they made:

And there were so many more! I even decorated a tote bag!

Basically it was a ton of fun but if I did it again I'd have more parameters on when students could come in and how much decorating they could do! It went on during lunch and study hall for a week! Still, my students are going to look amazing at the movie! And of course Faction Friday will be a win...

I've already had a number of staff and students fill me in on their faction outfits :) Plus, we have faction stickers and temporary tattoos!

I was able to see the movie in Chicago earlier in March and I loved it (read about it here!) I was also super lucky and got TWO movie posters signed by Veronica Roth to use as giveaways with my students. How cool is that?!?!?

So, how am I giving these away? Students who have seen the movie or read the book can complete a "mini review" of either one. I'll draw a winner from the book reviews and one from the movie reviews. 

I haven't decided how long I'll accept entries. Probably a month or so to give the students time to see the movie. 

So, yeah. We are SUPER excited about the movie. Any other ideas for activities we could do? Let me know in the comments! 

More Divergent Fun!

We've been having so so much fun with Divergent, especially as the movie release gets closer and closer! Here are a few updates on what's been happening:

I got my button machine and it is LOVE!!! So easy to use and the students love the buttons!!! 

First, students have to take the faction quiz! 

Once we know their faction they get a button with their faction's symbol on it.

I also made some buttons with text on them. Students seem to prefer the ones without text.

Our school had parent-teacher conferences at the end of February. Nobody ever comes up to the LMC so I set up a table in a high traffic area. I had copies of the books for people to look at, the faction quiz for students and parents to take (parents got buttons too!), notecards for mini-reviews, stickers, a slip of paper with the QR code that links to the MMS page with Divergent activities/news, my iPad with the movie trailer, and two cards with info about upcoming activities.

I also had five sheets of paper that I traced/colored the faction symbols on. Staff, parents, and students wrote their names under their faction. Of course most the students wanted to be dauntless!!! Here's a pic of the sheets (stuck together) before we signed up!

I was promoting two activities. First, I bought a ton of fabric markers and paint to decorate Divergent t-shirts. I also made stencils of the faction symbols. Students will bring in a t-shirt to decorate after school or during a free period. I'm hoping to have a lot of participation! Here are the (very rough!) stencils. Abnegation was really hard!

The other activity I was promoting ties in with the t-shirt day. We're having a school-wide "Faction Friday" spirit day on Friday March 21st (the movie release day.) Students and staff are encouraged to wear their faction colors or a Divergent related shirt. I wanted to have the cafeteria serve Dauntless cake (chocolate cake) but I didn't think of it until it was too late!

We'll also be meeting the week of the movie release to talk about what we want to see and thoughts about the book.

It's been so much fun to do all these activities. My favorite part hearing the students and staff talking about the book amongst themselves! So many parents at conferences talked about how much they loved the book too! Divergent is even showing up in student art projects! Here are a few bookish drawings (not just Divergent) and a t-shirt a student made at home. I LOVE IT!!! 

Divergent Activities

So, yesterday I totally revamped the way I'm going to do some of my Divergent activities. I came up with 16 different activities students can choose to complete. For each activity they can earn entry slips for a monthly and quarterly drawing. Here's my general write up:

Miss Z has come up with a variety of activities you can complete to go along with DIVERGENT. For each activity you complete you will earn an entry slip. Each month there will be a drawing for a small prize. Each quarter (starting at the end of second quarter) there will be a drawing for a bigger prize. Some activities can only be completed once. Others you can do multiple times. Take one of the direction sheets from the folder for the activity you are interested in to learn more. See Miss Z with any questions. 

This is what my display looks like:

Each folder is a different activity. There is a brief write-up on the outside of the folder and a more detailed write-up that students can take in the folder. Some of the activities require a separate sheet and those are on the shelves at the bottom. For those interested, here are the 16 activities with brief write-ups. 

Fan Art: Create some form of art that either:

*shows a scene, character, or location

from the book

*reflects the mood/feeling/tone of the story

*reflects how you feel about the book

Fan Fic:Fan fiction is anything that a fan writes that features the characters from a book. You could write on new scene. You could also re-write a scene in the book but change it in some way.  It's up to you!

Playlist: Create a playlist of FIVE songs that you think go well with the book or a specific character. You can even write your own songs if you want! Tell us why you picked the songs, too.

Trivia: Write FIVE trivia questions based on DIVERGENT or INSURGENT. Trivia questions must have a specific and correct answer. They are factual and leave no room for debate.

Discussion: Write FIVE discussion questions based on DIVERGENT or INSURGENT. Discussion questions have answers that require you to think and form your own opinion. 

Poster: Design a poster for DIVERGENT or INSURGENT. It can be done by hand or by using the computer/iPad. You can make it like a movie poster, a poster advertising the book, a scene from the book, the factions, whatever!!

Factions Today: Choose THREE famous people or historical figures and tell us what faction you think they'd belong to and why.

Faction Fashion: Design an outfit the represents each faction. You can draw your own or use a site like www.polyvore.com.

Book Cover: Redesign the cover for DIVERGENT or INSURGENT. You can do this by hand or using the computer/iPad.

Title: Give DIVERGENT or INSURGENT a new title and tell us why you choose that title. How does it fit in with the story?

Faction Slogan: Slogans are short, memorable phrases companies use to try and sell their product. Create a slogan for one of the factions and tell us why it represents that faction.

T-Shirt Design: Design a DIVERGENT or INSURGENT t-shirt. It can be about the books in general or for a specific faction. You can do this by hand or using the computer/iPad.

Bookmarks: Design a bookmark related to the DIVERGENT books. You can do this by hand or using the computer/iPad. Check out the bookmarks we have in the LMC for ideas!

Review: Write a review of DIVERGENT or INSURGENT. Use the MMS Book Review form. If you have a different idea for a creative review type clear it with Miss Z first!

Author Letter: Write a letter to Veronica Roth. You can tell her what you loved about the book, ask her questions about the book or herself, whatever! Remember to be polite and respectful. If you choose to send it remember that she is busy and may not have time to reply. 

Game Time: Create some sort of DIVERGENT or INSURGENT related game. It could be a board game about the book in general or maybe a game children would play based on the faction they grew up in. Use your imagination.

I'll do a monthly drawing for something small like a box of candy. The quarterly will drawing will be bigger.... I'm not sure what yet. I have a boxed set of Divergent and Insurgent. I will have a signed copy of Allegiant. Stuff like that. 

That's it in a nutshell. We'll see how this goes!

Red Wings Read

One of the things I'm most excited about for this school year is a program I'm starting called Red Wings Read (our school mascot is the Red Wings!) Basically it's a modified "one book, on school" type of deal. Each year I plan to choose a book to "feature" in my library. I plan to promote the heck out of it and plan all kinds of activities for staff and students. One of my main goals with this program is to give students and staff a shared reading experience. I know it can be overwhelming for teachers to try and keep up with what students are reading. This way my teachers only have to read one book to be in the loop :) 

To start the program off I'm featuring Divergent by Veronica Roth. I chose this title for a couple of reasons. I love it. It was popular in my LMC last year. I thought teachers would enjoy it as well as students. The third book releases this year and the movie next year. Take your pick! But really it was because I love it so much :) 

The first thing I did was sit down and come up with as many ideas as I could to go with the book. Here's a post I did on my book review blog about it. I want the students to see the book everywhere! I'm really lucky in that I have a very supportive principal. We've done some pretty great things so far. Here's what we've started with.

* I wrote the aforementioned blog post about my ideas and shared it with anyone and everyone I thought might also have ideas. One the wonderful people who works with Veronica Roth saw it and sent me some awesome items to use! Here are a few of the things that were in the package:

* At our staff meeting my principal gave me some time to introduce my plan. I gave a brief overview of the book and my ideas. We played the teaser trailer for the movie. I then announced that every teacher, aide, counselor, etc... would received a copy of Divergent. Yeah, they cheered. It was awesome. I then passed out the Divergent faction quiz found at the Divergent Fans website. Every teacher took the quiz and I recorded which faction they were in. Later that week they each got a piece of paper with their faction symbol on it. I asked them to display it somewhere in/near their classroom. It has been so cool to see them everywhere in our school! It's certainly gotten our students talking!

Some of our faction symbols!

 *  Our school's open house was the first week of school. I had planned to do more for it but I was still working like crazy to get the iPads ready to hand out to students. It ended up being pretty low key. I modified the faction quiz I used with teachers and printed off copies for students and their families to take. I also printed off the answers and laminated them. I taped them to a table. Also on that table I had Divergent coasters, write-ups about what we're doing with the book and order forms. Before the open house I called our local independent bookstore. They worked with me to allow families a 20% discount on the books. Families could take an order form and return it to me with payment by the end of the next week. I dropped them off at the bookstore. Once the books were in (about a week wait) I picked them up and passed them out. Also, if students took the faction quiz they could enter to win a boxed set of Divergent and Insurgent or other prizes. 

The "What's your faction?" table

* I've just started working on a Red Wings Read site that will give the students more information about the book, author, movie, and what we're doing with it all here. You can check it out here. 

*Finally, I've used two small cases I have on the walls outside the main doors into our library to set up a Red Wings Read display. It features information about the book, the author, and a QR code that sends students to the site I created. 

Ignore the glare!

So far things have been going really well. My teachers are all reading the book and talking about it with each other and the students. As I wrote up this post I had a teacher come rushing in because she read Insurgent last night and just needed to talk about it. All our library copies of the book are checked out and the teachers are loaning the copies we gave them to students as well. It makes my heart so happy to see so many students and staff engaging in discussions about the book and getting excited about reading it. I love it when I'm walking down the hall and I overhear people chatting about Divergent and the other books. I can't even express how much I love it! I'm so grateful for this awesome book written by Veronica Roth and the excitement it's creating. I can't wait to do more!