One thing I really liked in chapter 5 was when she talked about name to reader on assignments. I think this is a good way to motivate kids who don’t particularly enjoy reading. This book made me realize how much I actually do enjoy reading even though I never find time for it. Reading is never something I look forward to but once I get a good book I can hardly put it down. I think I need to make reading a priority in my life especially as a future teacher.

I chose Eleanor she is someone who doesn’t fit in with the rest of the kids in high school. Her physical appearance sets her apart as different. Not only is she very curvy with distinctive, bright, curly red hair, Eleanor often dresses in men’s clothing with loud accessories. She tries to make herself stand out with her outfits as part of her defense mechanism. A quote that is significant for this character is “She hadn’t told him that he was prettier than any girl, and that his skin was like sunshine with a suntan. And that’s exactly why she hadn’t said it. Because all her feelings for him—hot and beautiful in her heart—turned to gobbledygook in her mouth.” This is a milestone in her life, and a big deal given that Eleanor has an especially difficult time admitting her feelings to both herself and to Park. Overall I really am enjoying my YA novel and am eager to finish the rest. I would definitely recommend it to others.

I clicked on the School Library Journal Link from the resource guide. On this website you can find many different books and they are all sorted into different categories such as age level, diversity, and reviews. I learned about many different books that would interest me to read in the future. This could be very useful to us when looking for books for our students to read in the future.

The graphic novel I chose to read was Smile. Smile is an graphic novel written by Raina Telegraima. It gives an account of the author’s life from sixth grade to high school. Raina just wants to be a normal sixth grader, but one night she trips and falls, severely injuring her two front teeth. What follows is a major earthquake, boy confusion, and friends who turn out to be not so friendly. The entire story goes from Raina’s sixth grade to tenth. The way that I read graphic novels is by panel to panel. I usually look at the pictures first and then go back and read the words. This is the same way my neighbor reads graphic novels by comparing but I do know many people that read the words before looking at the pictures.

In Woodson’s book Brown Girl Dreaming this quote stood out to me “I believe that there is good in each of us/no matter who we are or what we believe in”

 

My activity: Going off this quote I want my students to write an I believe poem. I would hand them a worksheet that had ten lines each starting with I believe. I would hand this out to them then leave it up to them to write down things they believe in and are passionate about. After they completed the worksheet and wrote the poem I would then have them go around the room and look at each others poems and see what there other classmates wrote. I then would lead a class discussion relating it back to the quote that no matter what we believe in and even if it is different or contradicts the belief of another class mates there is still good to be found in all of us. I think this activity would fit into a larger sequence by giving them an introduction into civil rights and the ideas present in Brown Girl Dreaming.

 

Grade level: Second Grade

 

Common Core standard: This activity would follow the second grade common core standard of integration of knowledge and ideas which is to use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot. By using this quote by the main character Jackie they are understanding the underlying meaning of this quote and how it relates to her life in the book to how it relates to their own life.

 

What part of the school year would this take place: I would plan to conduct this activity in the month of January around Martin Luther King Jr. day because we would be reading Brown Girl dreaming which is tied to civil rights.

 

Materials needed: Paper, pen, the worksheet pre made

Goals for the activity: From this activity I want my students to one understand what they believe in and what is important to them in their own lives. Next I want them to see how by comparing their poems to their classmates that everyone is different but that it is ok to believe different things. Finally I want my students to recognize how this relates to civil rights and the ideas presented in Brown Girl dreaming.

Below is the link for the I believe poem worksheet

Download (PDF, 17KB)

Download (PDF, 17KB)

So far reading Brown Girl Dreaming I have really enjoyed the book. The opening poem touches on civil rights and the movements taking place when Jacqueline was born. The poem is suggesting that the preexisting racial conditions in the US at the time are going to have a lasting effect on her for her entire life. I really enjoyed reading a text with form and structure. Opening with a poem sets an entirely different tone that hooked me as a reader and also was very powerful.

 

So much depends

Upon

 

One choice

Decisions

 

It will effect me

You

 

One change for the

Better