Crime and Punishment Book Club

Crime and Punishment by Russian author Feodor Dostoevsky is a world renowed classic. It is the perfect book for group discussion and analysis. Even after the translation, Dostoevksy's use of language and symbolism can be hard to appreciate and understand when reading alone. Students will read one Part per lesson (approximately 7 chapters) on their own time. Each lesson, a new video will discuss the pages that the students have previously read. This class does not meet live. The prerecorded sessions will emphasize setting, the characters, their motivations, theme, story plausibility, and inferences about what might come next. We will also refer to any symbolism within the story and discuss what the author intended to represent with those symbols.  

Each lesson, students will have access to a video that covers the important elements of the week's reading and a corresponding one page worksheet with discussion questions and places for fill-in-the blank answers. The worksheets will also address/remind the students of some of the important topics from each chapter. I also assign a short writing assignment focused around that lesson's discussion questions and ask the students to share their responses in the classroom. I also ask students to submit any vocabulary words they didn't recognize or passages they did not understand. The more questions the students ask, the more "discussion" we can have in the classroom after each chapter. 

Weekly breakdown: 
Students will receive a worksheet and discussion questions for each weekly video. There is one weekly writing assignment to complete after the weekly readings. I will post a vocabulary word from the weekly reading for the students to use in a sentence that showcases their understanding of the definition. Finally, I will post a link to an optional Kahoot! trivia game the students can complete to further immerse themselves in Dostoevsky's world. 

Kahoot is a free resource that does not require an account or any additional steps.