I found it interesting that many students noted that they enjoyed reading realistic fiction. I too am most drawn to this category, however, I expected more students to lean towards fantasy or sci-fi. Miller does mention that the reason that many people chose realistic fiction is because they can more easily make personal connections to this book. It is still important that everyone has their own favorites and preferences, and that as future teachers we remember to make available a variety of genres.

I think is it so important to remember that “Preferences are not fixed. Wild readers move between types of reading material depending on their needs and interests at any given time” (169). In order to meet our students needs in this way, we ourselves need to be knowledgable in many genres. I hope to work on this myself by creating a more specific outline of my reading goals. I really enjoy reading and have a hard time putting down my book once I get started, but getting to that part is more difficult.

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby is very different and unique from other books I have read. It is about a high schooler, Finn O’Sullivan, trying to figure out what really happened after he saw the kidnapping of a young girl named Roza. A search went out to try and find Roza and it seems as though she just vanished. Throughout the book, you get to meet and know more people of Bone Gap and discover how the town got its name. It is a very interesting and kind of weird, but I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to others looking to read something new.

Finn is the main character in Bone Gap. He is tall and handsome, but he’s more of an outsider in town. Many people have nicknamed him “Moonface” because his mind always seems to be somewhere else. We also learn that Finn is “Face-blind,” meaning that he has a very difficult time ever being able to recognize anyone’s face. Instead, he notices things like obvious physical characteristics and how the move. This quote does a good job of summarizing Finn and his place in his community, “He was tired of everyone believing they knew everything there was to know about him, as if a person never grew, a person never changed, a person was born a weird dreamy little kid with too-red lips and stayed that way forever just to keep things simple for everyone else.”

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.

A. In Chapter 5 of “Reading in the Wild” the section of keeping track of your reading life really resonates with me. In the text, students are to read 40 books of various genres and visually track their progress. I think this is something I should start doing now to challenge myself. By doing this I can focus on the genres I tend to avoid and try to a way to enjoy these books.

B. What I’ve learned about myself as a reader is that I find myself so consumed with social media and filling my empty space with un-necessary knowledge and the knowledge I should be seeking, is that in books. My reading preferences have changed from spiritual books to young adult novels and history books. I will continue to grow as a reader by keeping books on me and allowing myself access to them. As a teacher of reading I am going to start growing my teacher library now.

C. The young adult novel that I chose to read was “The Hate U Give” By Angie Thomas. I definitely loved this book and enjoyed the writing style. The relevance of this book is what kept me intrigued and wanting to keep reading. The message of police brutality was an important root of this story and really shines light to a real, raw form of activism. I would recommend this book to everyone who is interested in activism and books with a female lead. I feel strongly that non-African Americans need to read this book because of the perspective we receive from Starr and how she deals with police brutality. This book offers us a point of view that most of us do not have nor will.

The main character is Starr Carter who is a 16 year old black girl who lives in the poor neighborhood of Garden Heights.  She attends a predominantly white school across town and feels the tension of both worlds. She feels that she is too “ghetto” for her white school and “Too good” for her poor neighborhood.

She interacts well with students at her school and is even dating a white male. Starr is a basketball player that gets along well with her teammates. When interacting with her friends and family in Garden Heights it becomes filled with learning legal rights, what and what not to do in terms of safety as the stakes are higher there. After she witnesses her childhood best friend Khalil being murdered by a police officer her worlds start to clash. At home, people are protesting in Khalils honor and bringing awareness to police brutality. At school, no one is talking about the case and her good friend even defends the cops choice to shoot.  To summarize the book, Starr learns to find her voice amongst her role in her clashing worlds. She becomes stronger and proud to be in the situation she is. Starr learns how to use her voice to shine.

“As long as I play it cool and keep to myself, I should be fine. The ironic thing is though, at Williamson I don’t have to “play it cool” — I’m cool by default because I’m one of the only black kids there. I have to earn coolness in Garden Heights, and that’s more difficult than buying retro Jordans on release day. Funny how it works with white kids though. It’s dope to be black until it’s hard to be black.” – Starr Carter