Facebook in the Classroom

I recently finished teaching To Kill A Mockingbird and loved every minute of it. During the course of the novel, I had students complete several activities to check on comprehension and the standards we must ensure they absorb. 

During the tail end of the novel, our department chair came up with an idea she found online to use the Facebook format in a characterization technique.  Beforehand, I wanted my students to work with the format, especially my 25% of students who do not have Facebook accounts. 

I failed to take pictures of it, so I apologize, but I'll do my best to describe the bulletin board.  I stapled five long strips of white butcher paper on one wall of my room.  Every strip of paper belonged to one class. I labeled them 1st, 2nd, 4th, and so on. My wonderful husband found pictures of the main characters and printed them for me.  Each picture went on a different colored paper.  For example, Atticus Finch (played by Gregory Peck) was put on purple paper.  Bob Ewell was put on gray paper.  I also had Scout Finch, Jem Finch, and Mayella Ewell.  If we had time, I would've had more characters. 

I then cut out strips of paper using the same colors so that every character (class) had five strips of paper to start.  I put all the materials they needed in a tub I labeled Facebook Kit.  It had markers, the different colored papers, and tape. 

It was slow going and took the students nearly two days to make posts but when it took off, it took off!  The most posts were made during and after the trial scene.  Granted, I had to monitor posts and even had to throw some of them away, but all in all, the students enjoyed it and I was able to see how much they knew about the characters.  They also got rather silly and started hacking the Facebook walls of other characters. 

It was quite interactive and showed me how well they understood the characters and were able to "get into their skin and walk around in it" as Atticus would say.