I began teaching Anthem by Ayn Rand last week with my 7th Graders. I was concerned that it would be too much for them, but I boiled it down to Collectivism vs. Individualism. I did some pre-reading stuff by looking at vocabulary; collectivism, conformity, individualism and altruism. I used thereflectiveteacher’s powerpoint that he used to introduce Anthem to his class (he graciously sent me the powerpoint).
If I must say so myself – I think it went really well! 
At first he kids were extremely frustrated; they could NOT understand why anyone couldn’t have an individual identity. They couldn’t understand why someone would just go along with it. They couldn’t grasp the idea that someone wouldn’t know about free thinking and individuality. I finally had to tell them that they just needed to accept that there were times and people who were forced to do and think things and that they didn’t even know that there were other ways to act and think. It was interesting because we are in South Florida and we hear so much about people escaping from Cuba – but the kids didn’t seem to make that connection. By the end of the class period, though, they understood the idea of collectivism vs. individualism.
I’m not going to get very deep into Ayn Rand’s ideas…that’s too much for 7th graders. What I want them to get out of reading this book is that going along with the group, in essence, peer pressure, isn’t the best thing to do. I want them to see that thinking for yourself can lead to good things, even if it’s rough going to get there.
The second day we began reading the book together. I took the whole hour to get though about 2 pages because I really wanted to make sure the kids got it. One of the most difficult things for them to get was that the narrator talks in plural pronouns because there are no single pronoun words in his society. They thought that was “weird”
We had interesting conversations about when the story was taking place – they did all eventually come around to realizing it was in the future. Some are still very much in the concrete thinking stage because that was hard for them to grasp. Overall though, I think I am challenging my students to think and they are rising to the occasion.
Yesterday I had a sub and I left them the rest of Chapter 1 to read and some questions to answer. I wanted them to work in pairs because the text is difficult, but apparently in first period the kids weren’t totally on task so the sub decided they couldn’t work in pairs. I was in the building, just in a meeting, so I went to my room and told the sub they really needed to work in pairs because of the complexity of the text. She said “but they were talking about other things”. OK, I understand it’s hard being a sub, but what happened to “Do your work or I’ll leave a note for your teacher” or just being the adult in the classroom? Most of our subs are fantastic and I had a feeling this one was weak when I met her in the morning. I found out later that she is a sub who another teacher refuses to have her room after one time. I’ll be telling the sub coordinator not to give her to me again either
On Monday the 8th graders have a state science test so the rest of us have to stay with our first period classes for the first 3 hours of the day. This means that I won’t see all my classes on that day and again on Wednesday when we have the last of our tests. Since I have 1st period for so long, I decided that I wanted to show a movie, but one that would have some relationship to Anthem. We have the TNT production of Animal Farm in the media center so they will see that. They will have questions to answer, as well. I think I will also show it to my other classes even though it will take 2 class periods to get through the whole movie. Normally I’d do something like that after we finished a novel, but the timing works to show it now.
OK enough rambling I’m really excited about this novel – I think the kids will enjoy reading something different and being challenged to think in new ways.
