I really enjoyed this class for this semester! It was my favorite class of the whole year actually. I think the reason why I liked it so much was because the material we were learning about wasn’t boring. It was interesting and fun! Also, I never felt stressed out by this class, which was really nice to just have a class that I could go to and learn about new ways of how to teach my students!

I have learned a lot with this class this semester! I have learned new ways of how to make English fun and exciting for my students. For example, the graphic novel section. I would have never thought to use graphic novels to teach an English lesson! I thought it was so cool how many ideas could branch off from the idea of graphic novels and I think it would be really good to use, especially for those kids who don’t like to read that much! Also, I liked how we did a series study! I think that it is a good thing for kids to get involved in because then they can find a series to get sucked into rather than spending a long time finding multiple books. I think that this lesson will help with bringing in a group dynamic.

I wished that I would have learned a couple of things this semester! I think that it would have been beneficial to spend some time talking about the core standards that teachers are required to teach! I think this would have been good because then we could start planning lesson plans that will hit multiple areas! Maybe it would have been nice to spend a good chunk of time talking about the cores and then how to apply them! Also along the lines of more instruction based, it would have been helpful to spend more time talking about how to write/teach subjects like poetry or book clubs!

I feel that with what I learned I can really start planning some lesson plans and activities! With the website final, I have started to compile information and my ideas somewhere where I can go back to when I have enough time to make a lesson plan! Also I feel like all of the activities we did like the graphic novels and series book with projects gave me an idea of how to use those activities in the future! Like ‘Battle Bunny’, I think that I could use this book with lessons in Fairy Tales! I had this idea on my website where I could find a couple of the classics and then they re-write them like ‘Battle Bunny’! It was really fun for me so I can only imagine how fun it will be for them!

This class was very fun and very great in terms of getting me ready for my future as a teacher! I am sad that it is over but I know that I will never forget my awesome semester in this class! Thanks for everything and this is Megan Williams Signing off!

Shades of Simon Grey was a great read! Once you got wrapped up in the mystery, it was hard to put it down. A quick summary of the book is the main character, Simon Grey, gets into a car crash which results in him being in a coma. Most people of the town will know him as “Saint Simon” but we learn within the next few chapters that Simon along with 3 of the popular seniors (Devin, Danny and Kyle) hacked into the schools data base and got test answers and their hands on the grade book. The 3 seniors used Devin, a girl Simon was liked, to get him to use his computer skills. Before the crash, the school caught on and Simon tried to remove everything that he placed. But the coma got in the way of completing his task. So while Simon has out-of-body experiences talking to and reliving the horrible death of Jessup Wildemere (a man who was hung for the “murder” of his loves’ father), the 3 seniors are doing all they can to protect themselves. Along the way they realize some stuff about themselves that they didn’t realize before. I don’t want to ruin the end of the book but to find out if Simon lives or not and if the 3 seniors get caught… pick up Shades of Simon Grey.

I think that one of the main themes behind the book is peer pressure. We see that Simon was pressured into helping the girl he liked into doing something that he knew was wrong. I think that this will send a good message to the kids who read this book to be their own person and not crack under what people want you to do. Another theme that I see is people’s consciences. We see throughout the book how the different characters react to Simon being in a coma. They reflect on their own lives and what they might have done that they wished they hadn’t. For example, Devin applied to Cornell or Middlebury with hopes that her cheated grades and the hacked scholarship money would be enough to get her in. However, once Devin realizes what she has done she begins to wonder if she even wants or deserves it. When she gets her acceptance packets, she doesn’t feel excitement but dread. In the end (Spoiler Alert) Devin goes to the local community college and decides to earn her spot. I think that this was McDonald’s point of this character. That Devin is suppose to represent a healthy conscience. She knew what she did was wrong and given the fact that Simon sacrificed his goodness to help her out really tore her up. She decided to clean her conscience. I think that McDonald wanted the children who read this book to see the struggle that having a heavy burden on your conscience was like so they knew what is right and what is wrong.

I really enjoyed this book! I would suggest it for middle school aged children because that is the age when peer pressure and the pressures of getting good grades start to affect the kids. I would recommend that people read it!

1.  Talk about the overall claims of these two scholars (Versaci and McCloud). What arguments are they making about comics and their uses? Use examples from their texts to support your summary.

I think that using comics as an English lesson is a great way for students to really get into reading. Personally I am more visual so I loved having the pictures available to me while I read the story plot. I think that now a days, teachers are following the guidelines given to them that they have lost all sense of what the kids want to read and if they are enjoying it. As teachers, we should be helping them love a subject not despise it. My brother is probably the most stubborn reader I have ever met. Trying to get him to read was like trying to make a pig fly… impossible. However, he is very artistic and I think that if he had a lesson like we did with genre books, he would have enjoyed it much more. Maybe even understood it better because he would be able to make his own ending through drawing. This creativity that is lacking in our education system now is only hurting the children. As Versaci says, “Adolescents and teenagers today are surrounded by diverse and increasingly complex media, and some will often find classroom materials to be dull, irrelevant, or both. But by placing a comic book-the basic form of which they no doubt recognize-into the context of a classroom, teachers can catch students off guard in a positive way, and this disorientation has, in my experience, led students to become more engaged by a given work” (Versaci 62). Kids learn what they like and what they don’t like really early, so why not get them excited about on subject! And a fun little fact… English isn’t the only subject this could be used for! Currently I am reading Art Spiegelman’s Maus 1 and Maus 2 graphic novels and they are historically based on the Holocaust. To spice up a lesson of the gruesome Holocaust, teachers could have their students read these two graphic novels and get an understanding of what it was actually like. These books allow for open interpretation that a textbook can’t.
2.  How did reading your text from the genre series compare to other reading we’ve done to date? How did it change how you read? How can you imagine using drama, comics or graphic novels in the classroom?

I really enjoyed my genre series choice! Not only am I  a huge fan of Rapunzel but she kicked ass in that book which made it that much better! It was a quick and enjoyable read and quite frankly it didn’t feel like I was reading. The book kept me engaged because I had to match the pictures and dialogue with how the order went! Sometimes I got lost but it wasn’t too hard to get back on track. I am going to use graphic novels in my future class because I feel like it will be a great way for the kids to enjoy reading but be creative! I will probably find a couple of graphic novels for them to choose from and then they will read it. Then I will probably have them write a different ending to them and they can add their own pictures! I really liked Rapunzel’s Revenge because SHE did all of the fighting and SHE rescued herself. It was very empowering for me to see a woman in that type of a role and I think it would be a good choice for some of my younger female students to read! Maybe boost their confidence up!

I think William sees a rustic scene where he is walking past a farm house. I think that this farm house has a garden (wheel barrow) and that the people living there could enjoy the gardening. I think what happened was a storm had just passed through or is currently happening so the people are inside but they are missing out on the joy of being outside in the rain. I think that Williams is walking either in the rain or after a rain storm and I think he feels joy from the simplicity of the scene. I think this because his poem illustrates for me a simple, quiet scene. I think that he is trying to touch on the fact that there are beautiful and simple moments in life and that is what is important.

Now here is my attempt to write an imaginative poem. My poem makes me feel calm and safe. I also feel joy when I think of this image and I really am in the mood for a road trip now!

so much depends

upon

a cool blue

ocean

touched by the sunset’s

beams

with the curling white caps

of the waves

 

and the ocean mist hitting

my face.