Some of the important points that I drew from this chapter the importance of expanding my knowledge on all types of books. The push to read as many different books as possible in order to guide my future wild readers in the best path for each unique student’s likes and tastes. In my future classroom I will be practicing the celebration of students’ choices. Which I think is crucial to any readers confidence. 

As a reader I have learned that I apparently I’m not as picky reader as I thought I was. I can find myself to like a book, I might not love it and enjoy it but I can come to terms with it and make peace. My reading preferences are definitely love, mystery and historical genre books. I have explored different genres in this class and have loved every one of them. I now willingly choose to go out of my comfort zone and explore “worlds” that teach me new things and help me grow as a student, future teacher and person. I’m very excited to get my read on over winter break. I really did try to read over these past few weeks but proved to be unsuccessful with everyone going on in my community. It’s about finding and making time just like Miller has mentioned before and that is what’s next for me. 

Eleanor has big bouncy, red curly hair. She’s white and she has pretty pink cheeks that turn bright red when she gets nervous. She is not like the rest of the girls at this new school, the opposite of Tina’s figure you might say. Eleanor is bigger, she has bigger chest than the rest of the girls and her legs and wider and her belly might hang a little under her big shirts and sweaters she wears to try and hide it. Eleanor avoids everyone by all means. For the most part she only shares her thoughts and feelings with her self. She is not very open if at all, for her expressing her actual feelings might make her appear weaker. Eleanor also avoids the world around her, especially at home. It takes her more than 2/3 of the book to tell Park the cute guy who she is so into about her step father. A man needless to say is a complete worthless, cynical, alcoholic and violent man with Eleanor’s mother, siblings and towards her. She rarely ever even has an actual conversation with her mom, a woman trapped in a domestic violence relationship who see’s no other way to life. Eleanor is beyond strong. She is emotionally broken because of her physical appearance, but her heart is so big and she has so much love to give. She is shy, brave, loyal to those she loves and tough. 

I loved this novel. I enjoyed it so so much. I look forward to reading more books by Rainbow Rowell. I actually liked it so much that I purposely did not want to finish it it took me awhile to be mentally prepared enough to finish the book. I would definitely recommend this book, it is so worth reading. 

Graphic novels were never my thing growing up, in fact if it was not for this class I would have never picked one up and actually sat down to attempt to read one; but Smile was so good! Smile is about Raina and her personal take and first hand experience with her many visits to all sorts of dental physicians. Raina suffers an accident where she severely damages her teeth. During her visits to the several dentists she goes to for years, her teeth improve but so does her self esteem and her group of friends. Raina becomes a new girl. She’s now a teenager with a new group of friends who is starting to get into guys oh and did I mention she has a perfect smile?

With the resource guide I discovered a lot of general knowledge about graphic novels that I did not know of. It answers questions that I had always wondered, insights to different type of styled readers like the ‘reluctant reader’ which I think is great. Parents as well as teachers can a learn a lot about this genre. With all prejudice aside and putting the reader first! Which I believe is crucial. If the reader enjoys it, that should be what matters. 

D. One of many examples in my book where you can see Raina’s character trait through her expressions and movement is when she is a bit shy while she attempts to talk to the cute guy in her band class. Raina is quite shy, it is also seen in different situations where her so called ‘friends’ make fun of her and she kind of just takes it. At the beginning of the story, Raina just takes a submissive trait which you can see with her body language and facial expressions and towards the end of the story she realizes how wrong she is being treated. She develops an inner strength and she finds real friends in which through the drawings you can tell she us genuinely more comfortable and happy. It’s crazy to think you can figure this out just by looking at drawings. 

 

 

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The verse book I chose was Inside Out & Back Again. My initial thought was that I was not going to like it, I have never been a fan of poetry and I immediately started this book with the mentality that it was not for me. Little did I know this book was going to turn everything I felt about poetry upside down. It was a little hard to read a text that went in stanzas and I have to admit the first couple pages I had to reread several times because I was not getting a flow. In mind they were just translating into chunks of words and it was frustrating. I put down the book more than once. Once, I got the hang of it though everything was smooth sailing. I went through pages after pages and the boom it was over and I was left with wanting to know more about what happens to Kim Ha. In class I would use it as a read to introduce poetry but I would read it out loud and then draw lesson plans with the text. 

so much depends

upon 

a dark red 

laptop 

below a small polarid 

photo 

of a smiling girl with her brothers 

in her arms

– – Liz Arevalo