Blog 6

1. Graphic novels are now available for a wide range of ages. Graphic novels are a great option for reluctant readers, and a good way to get a student into becoming a “reader”. This is another great genre to recommend to English learners in our future classrooms. I really enjoyed the Classroom Activity section to this scholastic website. They offered a lot of ideas that you can definitely mold into a lesson plan for any grade level. I saved this website into my future teacher google doc and will reference back to it for my future classrooms.
2. I adored my graphic novel, “Smile”. It was about a girl’s experiences with dental care throughout seventh, eighth, and ninth grade (rattling her self-esteem). At first, she falls and knocks her teeth out, but then they end up not looking right so then she has braces with mouth gear, then she has an overbite so that requires more dental worth, and the poor girth is a never ending dentist’s dream brace face until finally she gets to finish ninth grade with good friends and just a retainer.
3. I had to teach myself how to read this graphic novel, it was my first ever! At first I would start by looking at all the pictures over the two pages from left to right, and then would great frustrated because I knew exactly what was going to happen, so I started folding my paperback book and reading one page at a time from top to bottom. Once I was going one page at a time, I tried to read each panel together, reading/looking at the words and pictures alongside each other.  The panels made time go by so much faster than in a normal novel. Each sequence of panels was able to represent a day or week or entire winter vacation, showing time so much more clearly. I love the freedom a graphic novel has for student’s reading styles.

Blog 7  

1. Miller Chapter 5 Wild Readers Show Preferences

1. a) Offering students different genres to choose from is essential. Giving the student the power to pick their own books helps them feel connected to their choice. As teachers we need t0 hold of books of the same value, whether that be fiction, non fiction, graphic novels, magazines, internet content, series or the preference for rereading old favorite books. Students need to commit to their books to show  strong reading habits.
2. b) As a reader, this class and book taught me I need to step my game up a bit. Rediscovering children’s books in this class has been a treat and something I will continue to cherish throughout the rest of my education. With all of the homework, class readings, and required books, I have not read for myself until this classroom community pressured me to do so for my future classroom. I plan on continuing to read not only for myself, but for my future student’s benefit. I want to be able to offer them books that will make them feel special. Telling a student they might like a book that you also liked, makes them feel special. I think creating a fun craft for reading logs in my classroom could create more active readers. Instead of getting parent signatures, they can create something, while feeling proud for reading and finishing their book. Preferences help students become independent readers.

 

Young Adult Novel – We Are Okay by Nina LaCour 

Marin is having a hard time her freshman year of college, She is still at the dorms over winter break because she has no home to go back to. Marin is insecure and on edge. She has been through a lot and prefers to immerse herself in her studies to distract her from what she had been through. She interacts with her gramps in her flashbacks with so much love. She has a warm heart during her flashbacks. She is cold when she writes in the present tense. She is depressed and has been through a traumatic experience. Marin’s world around her is dark. Her friend Mable visits her from her hometown. Marin wishes things could be like they used to, but after losing her Gramps nothing will ever be the same.

My young adult novel is lonely. It is definitely not what I was expecting. I did not realize that it was a college student or that I would relate to the book so closely. This book make sme very sad when I read it because it reminds me of my best friend who suffers from severe depression and trauma like our main character, is a reader, and is close to her grandfather. This novel helps me understand what my best friend is going through depression wise, a little more. I would recommend this to first time college students. Being eighteen and away from home is a brave thing to do. I think this book could comfort many students.

 

Here is our thing

Thanks for reading :) make sure you teach the amazing value of diversity in your classroom!!!

I chose to write Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai because I have always viewed American refugee policies and American immigration policies to be overall inhumane. I hoped to see a first hand an account of that kind of traumatic experience through this book. Reading it in verse definitely helps makes her experiences easier to understand.  Lai went from Vietnam to Alabama, a culture shock I could never even begin to understand. Boarders are supposed to just be lines on a map. Instead, these boarders create power dynamics in society and in politics. These lines create ownership over American land that was never a white man’s to begin with. Just this year we saw Donald Trump create pop up immigration holding centers where they stripped children away from their families. These horrific acts in American history will hopefully push for a better, more open minded country. Seeing the hardships faced by immigrants or refugees will help create for an empathetic society so that law makers feel the urge to create the change. Inside Out and back Again is a primary example of how reading a young girl’s experience, could help eventually change how some people may view current immigration policies.

I created a form that would be great in a classroom that worked with Flora and Ulysses. Flora has a pet squirrel with super powers, so I thought it would be fun to give my students a chance to give their own pets powers. Attached, I added my example stories and picture of my own super-dog. I think that this would be a better assignment for younger children because it is simplistic, but would like to lower the writing requirements if I used it in a grade any younger than second. This would be an activity to do after class reading time to let the students get creative. Click on picture and read please :) I think the assignment would go well and I really enjoyed doing it, however I forgot to draw Spencer with glasses so now his identity is blown. He is now just a dog because he had to retire.