This is the link to my project for the digital gallery walk! I read the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Click on the link and let me know what you think! Also, it you would like to borrow the book I would love to let you borrow it! I highly recommend it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f66b2UE9lk0&feature=youtu.be

So far, one take away I have from Millers text is that having students read series books together can be extremely beneficial. I agree with the thought that it allows them to come together, and get excited, and talk about something. I get so excited myself in class when we all sit around and talk about our series books right now. It helps to clarify, and get other perspectives on the book. I also think it is a good concept to keep track of your reading and what you are reading and how much. I wish I would have done that so I could really quantify all I have read and potentially feel good from that. It would also give me a chance to remember books I read and loved, that I could use in teaching.  I am most worried about dealing with “fake readers” because I used to do that often and wasted so much time. I am most excited to get children reading, and help them find books they love and enjoy and can get lost in. I don’t want to ruin reading for these kids. I want to be the teacher that makes it awesome! Who doesn’t force them to finish a book they weren’t feeling, but gave them other options to try out! I want to try and be my best, but I know struggles will come along with it too.

There were a lot of aspects that I was not familiar with in the Grimm telling of Snow White. I haven’t seen the Disney version in a very long time so I looked up a refresher online. To begin, in the Disney Version, the evil stepmother did not want to boil and eat her liver and heart. She just wanted it in a box to know she was dead. Another difference is that when snow white met the dwarves in the book, it took on a “Goldie locks” style. That didn’t happen in the movie. Also, the amount of times the wicked stepmother tried to kill snow white differed greatly. In the movie it was once, by hiring a huntsman (which also happened in this version), and again with a poisoned apple (also happened). In the Grimm version there are many attempts at her murder. A dress laced to tightly, a poison comb, etc. At the end of the Disney movie, Snow White is brought back by true loves first kiss. In the book however, the poison apple is just luckily dislodged from her throat. The last big difference was in the movie the stepmother did by being struck by lightning, and in the book, she was tortured to dance in hot iron shoes until she fell dead.

The things that surprised me in the story was the amount of times the stepmother tried and failed to kill Snow White, and how she forced to dance in the hot shoes at the end. It was pretty random to me, and kind of gruesome. It was longer and more brutal than the Disney version, which makes sense because they are making children’s movies. Another big surprise was when the dialogue got similar to that of “Goldie locks”. It made me wonder how those two stories got to cross over like that.

Lastly, I think the theme of the story was that Snow White was so fair and so pure and beautiful that evil and ugliness couldn’t touch her. If you are good enough and pure enough it will protect you. I think this is the theme because the multiple attempted murders fail every time and Snow White is brought back more beautiful and fair. This leads me to feel it is meant to make a point that evil can keep trying, but she is too good and fair and it will eventually lose, like the stepmother did.