Bamboozled: How I Tricked my Eighth Graders with The Lorax

Bamboozled. Hoodwinked. Duped (partly).

This is how my eighth graders felt when they thought they WON, but what they quickly learned was I had outmaneuvered them. 

One of our units is based on the nonfiction text Sugar Changed the World. It is a DENSE unit, and boy, is it dry. My eighth graders come to me at eighth hour, and trying to trudge through this unit was a struggle to say the absolute very least. I couldn't find a way to make the content better, and given the content, I did not see a way to make the delivery better that would make the content palatable without simultaneously seeming incredibly insensitive. 

One day, they outright told me: "Mrs. R, PLEASE NO MORE SUGAR. What if we watch The Lorax instead?"

Initially, I shut their little scheme down. "It is WAY too close to testing for that, besties." Then, an idea hit me. *cue evil laughter* Each unit culminates with an essay, and I could connect the environmental issue allegory within The Lorax back to the sugar industry AND use The Lorax to introduce our next unit, which begins with Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave." We brainstormed some assignment ideas, and while they watch the movie, I spent the time creating this assignment. In a perfect world, I would not have done this on the fly, but we came to an agreement before we watched the movie. They'd look for places where they could compare the sugar industry to the environmental threats rife within Thneedville. 

As they watched the movie, I had them take notes using a t-chart. On one half was The Lorax, and on the other was the sugar industry. After we watched the movie, I introduced the fleshed out assignment. Here is a link to the completed assignment description, and here is the link to the pre-writing research activity. 

In The Lorax, the Once-ler’s song, “How Bad Can I Be?” is when we see the transformation of the landscape surrounding Thneedville from a beautiful landscape in nature to an unlivable environment filled with smog, sludge, and not one tree. We also see the Once-ler go from a friend of the Lorax and the native creatures to a businessman who is completely willing to destroy his “friends” for profit. The Lorax pleads with the Once-ler, but the Once-ler chops down all the truffula trees. While The Lorax is a fictionalized account of the impacts of deforestation, overconsumption, and industrialization, the reality is that unchecked industry is a threat to nature. In this essay, you will compare the environmental impacts of the sugar industry to the fictionalized version of industry portrayed in The Lorax. 

In this assignment, compare the environment portrayed in The Lorax to the research you conduct on the ills of the sugar industry. The pre-write will be worth 20 points. The essay is worth 100 points. 

In this assignment, you will conduct research, make connections between your source and The Lorax and use the information to form a strong point you will argue in your essay. 

They were totally bamboozled. "You want us to do RESEARCH?" "Mrs. R, what the heck do you mean I need a thesis statement?" "I have to READ now?!" The melodramatic reactions to reading and writing in an English class is always a fun time. As they worked through this assignment, I broke this down into several mini-lessons. Mini-lesson one was performing research and taking notes. I gave them about two days in class for this part. My next mini-lesson was based on organizing a research essay and creating an outline. A thesis statement is the road map to an essay, and the reasons listed in the thesis statement become each of the body paragraphs. I know it's basic and not the best, but it gets the job done.

In the outline, I had them start with their basic thesis statement, and one main idea sentence for the body paragraphs. I also suggested they start figuring out which sources fit with which reasons. Within this, I taught them how to properly cite sources using MLA parenthetical citations and a proper works cited page. All in all, this mini-unit took about two-and-a-half weeks. 

And this led me straight into my next unit, which is called The Tell-Tale Heart. This unit centers on perception, reality, and truth, and it begins with Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave." Prior to beginning the reading, we discussed allegory, and I cannot tell you how overjoyed I was to use The Lorax again. 

My eighth graders could not side eye me hard enough. 

Sometimes, a decision made on the fly just works itself out, funnily enough. In creating this assignment, I asked students to synthesize and organize information across multiple sources while also asking them to engage with non-fiction text through the research process.

And that's on low-bar teaching, besties. 

As always, thank you for reading, and thank you for being here! 

Katelyn