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=The My Meaning Project=

Books spend most of their lives on shelves rather than in eager hands. No matter how much you may love them or are engaged with them, eventually, books will find their way out of your lives. That is, unless, you make some personal meaning out of them, allowing them to change your life. The books that mean nothing to you, the ones you forget the second you put them down, these are the ones that you have not created a personal meaning from. On the other hand, books that leave you changed, ones that make you feel different about yourself and your world, these are the ones that you have forged a personal meaning in. These are the ones that matter.

In order to make this process of creating personal meaning more concrete, we will be engaging in a wiki project called My Meaning. My Meaning will allow you to explore the one thing that makes a novel special to you. You will explore this one thing through the many characters and ideas you have loved throughout the book. But, what does this look like? How exactly will you create this My Meaning?

How does this work?
You will be developing your My Meaning project by first finding the one thing that you connect with in the novel, //The Outsiders//. In order to help you do that, you can think about the times in the book that really understood, the times when you really felt connected to the characters or the story. These events in the book are going to provide support for your My Meaning, but you have to figure out the one thing that ties all of them together. Let me give you an example:


 * The things I connect with in the story:**
 * Intelligent boy who doesn't fit in with his family or many of his friends.
 * Getting into more trouble than is necessary
 * Trying to understand how the world works
 * Having fantasies about a better life
 * Trying to both overcome and live within the labels that people give


 * The one idea that connects them all together and connects me to them:**
 * I am forging an individual identity while the weight of society is pressing down upon me.

This one statement that starts off with "I am [doing something]" is your My Meaning. It is the overarching goal of your project. Everything you do will be filtered through this one statement. So, need to make it a good one. Don't be satisfied with the first thing that comes to your head. Do not make it too small that you will be bored by it or too large that you will never be able to fill it out. I will approve each one, so don't worry if you don't get it "right" on the first try. Simply aim for something that makes sense for you and the book.

Expectations

 * The students will use the discussion tab in order to explore their ideas with one another and the history tab to see the evolution of their ideas.
 * They will embed media to show their My Meaning in many different ways.
 * They will link to one another, creating a web of ideas.
 * They will add pages explaining their thoughts, coming together and splitting from one another at times.
 * They will adhere to the Discovery Blogging Rules, and only do actions that create more meaning for all.
 * They will transform the My Meaning Template into a living expression of The Outsiders using multiple types of text.

Photo Credit: [|**ah BOB lee -- the JiuHuKia**]