I had a hard time trying to get a website for this PowerPoint Presentation or to upload it to you tube so hopefully this works…if not I will try again. I worked super hard on this and truly will cry if it doesn’t work once it is published.

 

Wintergirls  (right click and open in a new tab, then once it is downloaded, click slide show to view it)

Okay so here’s another way to view the slideshow presentation:

www.slideshare.net/lorrennisleeds/wintergirls-book-trailer

 

 

My Choosing of the Divergent Series

Before I open the book, I stare at the front cover. It is beautiful blue with shades of grey and blue intertwined. With and artistic expression of wind and fire encompassing upon each other. New words. New author.  What would this new read be about? What does the word Divergent mean? I have never heard of such a word until now. As I open this new title. This foreign book. I am open to a new read. Far from the normal reading choices I am so accustomed to reading. Cough…echem…Nicholas Sparks…excuse me. I have been stuck in a rut of reading the same material these last few years. So I open the pages of this new book. I smell the pages. Crisp and clean. I love the smell of a new book. Gosh I hope this is a better read than my last book I had to read! I scan the pages within the book, looks like it could be a potential easy read. I begin the first chapter. The first page. I read. Read three pages and to my dismay I am already on the second chapter. I re-read the first chapter just to make sure I didn’t miss anything…also because I am a slow reader who tends to think about other things while reading a text.  

Factions? Divergent? Abnegation? These words are foreign to me. Why do these words enable me to want to read more? Who is this Beatrice? And is she going to be Divergent? As I continue to read I realize that in just under an hour, I am nearly two hundred pages into this new book. I have never been able to read that much in such a short amount of time. Not even with Nicholas Sparks books. I find myself reading this book during my spare time throughout my day, for hours during the night. I find myself not watching television but totally immersed in the book on the couch while my kids are off playing in their rooms.

Well, as you might have not guessed by now, I am reading the Divergent Series by Veronica Roth. I absolutely love these books! I can not wait til the movie comes out in March, I am so taking you up on that in-class offer Kim for a field trip to go and see the upcoming movie.

So I finished reading the first book in five days. I hate to talk about what a book is about as to the very fact that it can sway someone else in the actual reading of the book. But here it goes…it is about a world where everyone is divided into Factions: Amity, Abnegation, Candor, Dauntless and Euridite. It faction has a different purpose in how this world or their (society) is ran. Our main character is Beatrice Prior who is on the brink of having to make a choice of whether or not she is going to continue her life as an abnegation like her parents or if she is to choose another faction to live the rest of her life. Now in order to make this type of decision, you have be of age to take a test. She took the test but failed it, only because it labeled her for three factions instead of one faction. In her world this is known as being divergent. Which is strongly discouraged to discuss with others. She chooses to become dauntless…and therefore leaves her family behind. Being dauntless means that you have courage and don’t have any fears. A person that chooses to become dauntless has to go through the initiation process to weed out the weak or inferior ones. If you get booted out then you become part of the factionless society. A society of poverty and unhealth.

Since she has choosen to become dauntless, she has been the target of redicule, and of ongoing tests of strength and sense of self. She has proven that not only will she be first but that she will be a leader of change.

What I like about the series, is that it is very easy to understand, read, and vision in my imagination. The author gives vivid details within her books, to set up the scene perfectly. Each page flows beautifully. I am engrossed into this read and don’t want to put it down. I don’t have any dislikes for this series. In fact, not matter the more mature language, I am trying to encourage my sixth grade daughter to read the first book within the series.

I believe that this series could be for ages thirteen and up. It is an easy read and has some mild language and descriptions of scenes that are for a more mature audience of readers. The first book has some mild language that would be discouraged for primary school aged children, whereas middle school and high school students can handle this type of read.

As for resources available: the book itself is the primary resource, and then the internet comes next. This series could be used in the classroom of middle school or higher as a group read that could bring about a discussion of how society is ran and how it ties into the current way we as United States of America is being ran, what types of factions do we have that the students can see? I would use this series read in my classroom if I was teaching at the middle school level as a political piece. I would have the students to come up with comparison questions that the books depicts and what our government looks like as a whole. Do we have a population of Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Euritde and Dauntless human beings that are in our community, our government, our homes, our cities and so forth? I hope that as a future teacher, that I am on the right track into reading a book and thinking about possible lesson plans from the material as a resource…thank you for your time.

3 year old child learning to read   (to watch this video:right click on the highlighted words to your left here, then open link in a new tab and enjoy the video. She is too adorable!)

It gives me an awesome feeling to witness a child read for the first time on their own. As a mother of two daughters, I have been able to watch my girls grow through reading. It started out as readig to them and then progressed into them wanting to read to me. Now that they are older, they read at levels beyond their grade association. It excites me to watch my children to read on their own and know that they wouldn’t have gotten to where they are without my efforts to teach them. Now that I can apply this type of teaching to other children, I am totally physched! I can’t wait to have the capabilities to introduce a whole new world of imagination through the gift of reading. I feel that in order to teach reading to a child, as a future teacher, I would model the behavior, provide interesting materials to read, set a routine for the children to follow, and celebrate all reading using incentives.  As Dr. Suess puts it so nicely, ” The MORE that you READ, The MORE things you will KNOW, The MORE you LEARN, The MORE places you will GO!”

As for the actual reading of the book by Donalyn Miller with Susan Kelly, Reading in the Wild, this book is really interesting in the sense to give meaning to what is a reader and who are considered good readers. I really liked reading page 8 in the book. The little short section about the Wild Readers Chime In:

” ‘ When I start reading, I cannot stop…I cannot do anything else. I will stay up all night to finish a book—not always practical.’ ” & ” ‘ I feel guilty that I should be doing something else—playing with the kids, housework, etc.’ ” & ” ‘ I’m often too tired [to read] in the evening. When the book hits me in the face, I know it’s time for lights out.’ ”

These three quotes totally feels like I had uttered them at one point or another during the course of my adult life when it comes to the regards of reading or the lack thereof. I have realized that as a mother I need to set the example by showing them that instead of watching tv til you fall asleep, that you can get wrapped up into a book of interest. Therefore keeping your mind active and engaged. I feel that as a future teacher, I would need to set the same example but in a different sort of way. I would set aside a time slot just for in class reading. Another interesting point is in the Introduction  page XXVI, Donalyn Miller suggestions or states as a classroom nonnegotiables that children need to make their own choices about reading. I believe that this is important concept because if they don’t like what they read then they will not read later on in their life. Even as an adult I find myself being bored to death with the literature these teachers assign me to read. If I am not interested in the first few pages then why should I continue to read? I feel it should be like this nonnegotiable through out life.

Donalyn Miller’s book, Reading in the Wild is going to be a book I will take to heart as a guide into teaching reading effectively. I mean I have only read a few pages  and skimmed a few more, but I can see myself using this book as a tool for teaching reading and writing.

My fear in teaching all together is: Not knowing the material before teaching it to another. I don’t necessarily fear teaching, I just fear that what I am currently learning wouldn’t be applied in my teaching practices. But I get that will just take pratice over time. Kim, you gave us some awesome tips when it comes to teaching a child to read. Tip 1: Read the books first before giving to a child to read. This way you can excite the child into reading that book you chose for them to read in the first place. Tip 2: Offer a wide variety of books within your classroom, so they can choose their own reading materials in your classroom. Good and insightful tips to take to heart. Thank you Kim.

 

In Emma Donoghue, Kissing the Witch, she writes about the empowering females of the classic fairy tales with her own twist to each one. This author places woman on a pedestal and well men in general are irrelevant. Where traditional fairy tales demonstrate the power and courage of men to come to the aid of weak and beautiful females, these tales that Ms. Donohgue writes is exact opposite. They are very sensual, magical, and totally captures the feminine strength describe in each story. It would be hard for me to choose just one favorite story, but I would say it would be Tale of the Rose. The rose is a symbol of life wanted, shared, valued. This story is a twisted version of the original Beauty and the Beast, where the “Belle” of this story asks her father for a rose instead of fine clothes or jewels. He gets this rose from the “Beast” along with gold and other items on one condition, that he is to give away the first person he sees. He sets his eyes on “Belle” and she loves the rose but is sadden by the bargain her father has made. This tells me that with everything in the world there is a  price to pay. For health, you need to eat right and exercise. For money, you have to work for it. So with this story her father trades his daughter for wealth and the rose. She goes willing to this castle and finds that life there isn’t all that hard to deal with. Though she misses her home, she is enthralled by the magic she feels by reading and having an abundance of the things she enjoys at her fingertips. She only has to tolerate this beastly character in the mean time. As the story progresses, the girls realizes that beast isn’t all that bad, the beast even allows her to go home to take of her sickly father and the girl leaves. At home she takes care of her father and then returns to the beast because she is drawn to (him)…she finds out by removing this mask that the Beast is actually a girl…this surprised me as I read this story. But then with further discussion in class about who the author was, I realized that this author really is attracted to the female spirit.

In other words, this book wasn’t among my favorite reads…only because I found the stories hard to relate to the real world and how the world views women. So all in all, I probably will not be sharing this book with my future students.