It’s Trevor Noah: Born A Crime by Trevor Noah is a well-illustrated autobiography about the struggles and challenges Trevor faced as a ‘colored’ child living in South Africa. Throughout the book, Trevor is faced with many different challenges due to the racist and unjust government that was in place while growing up. As Trevor grows older he starts to realize the many flaws and cracks in the system which Trevor thought was right. Trevor soon realizes because of this unjust government, kids like Trevor were taught to hate themselves. Although the law says something should not be done does not mean that it is right, this is a big idea that I found was developed throughout this book. During the time Trevor was a child races were mainly segregated because of the racial policies that were in place. One of the worst crimes that could be committed was race-mixing. Although the law is saying you can not race mix it does not mean people will agree with these laws. In the text, it says “Race mixing proves that races can mix- and in a lot of cases want to mix.” This shows that the law isn’t fair nor is it right for any one in South Africa. Another big idea that was developed throughout this book is that the discrimination and unjust government in South Africa made people who were not just of one race feel that they could never be accepted. Born A Crime is written through the lens of a ‘colored’ child who was living in South Africa when it was illegal to have any mixed-race children. Because of the unjust government Trevor along with the few other ‘colored’ children in South Africa felt as if they always had to change who they were to fit in because they could never be themselves. Anytime they tried to fit in with a group they were either not black enough or not white enough. Born A Crime is a book that shows a deeper and new way to look at racism and discrimination. I recommend reading this book if you like to learn about a little bit of history whilst having an entertaining story along the way.

Central Idea:

This page was a process page after our first lesson of learning about themes and central ideas. I started the page with just having my central idea and question for our book club. Throughout the unit I returned to this page to further develop the page with some evidence and also character development.

Exploring multiple big ideas at once:

On this page I developed two different central ideas where I gave different ideas from the book to support my central idea(s) then I made a connection between the two central ideas and added a piece of evidence to further support my central idea.

Process Page:

After we learned some new ideas during class I decided to use some of those ideas to track my think for my own novel. On this page I developed a big idea I felt was going on during the book, next I copied down one of the central ideas I had developed earlier on. I then decided to come up with a theme that I felt connected with my big idea and my central idea. Lastly, I wrote about some character development I saw going on during a certain part of the book.  The pink post it note is one that I had posted in my book that I felt helped support my central idea.

Narrative vs. Informational:

On this page I used the idea of Narrative and informational to track some of my thinking with the book. For the narrative part I wrote down some key ideas that were being said throughout the book. During the book if they start talking about some historical events that need some background information after the chapter there will be one or two pages that will give you some background info  which can help you have a deeper understanding of what’s going on.  On the post it note earlier on I wrote down a question and later on I came back to that question and answered based on what I had discovered reading further on in the book.

Cause + Effect:

Using the idea of cause and effect, I decided to use only one cause with multiple different effects. I also gave some reasoning for causes and the effect to further prove them. On my top posted note I wanted to further develop my cause and effect, so I decided to try and create some good effects that came out of a bad cause.

Making Connections:

I chose this page because after we learned of this idea in class it helped me make connections with some big ideas I noticed over the course of my book. It helped me work visually because I am able to see all the multiple big ideas and start to make different connections between the ideas. And then support them with evidence.