Blog the Third: Series of Exploring the Reader

My series I chose was the Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. I read this series when I was younger in fifth grade and what I like about it is how suspenseful it is. There’s always something new going on with the main characters. The climax is intense.  The main characters consist of the Baudelaires: Violet, Klaus and Sunny. The horrible protagonist who follows them and pulls the most outrages stunts in order to get rid of the Baudelaires and keep their fortune is Count Olaf. 

This series is meant for adventure seeking readers. There is a new adventure and conflict that arises time after time in the series and although the adventures may not be ‘fun’ or nonetheless have an actual good resolution they are intense and they will keep you reading until you’re done. Some of the assumptions made in this series about childhood is that it’s rough, not everyone has it easy as many seem to think. As far as assumptions about children, the message I take from it now is that children are smart. They are not dumb, clueless and or powerless as society makes them out to be. Resources available are audio books and well maybe for an older audience the movie or the series on Netflix. Considering that I want to teach Kindergarten I don’t believe I would use this at all in my classroom. 

Miller has some amazing insights. Some of the resonating ideas that I drew from the reading so far is the idea of making time. As a full time college student, part time employee and full time sister I can definitely relate to that. There’s reading that I will make myself focus on but let me get my hands on a good book and you will catch me reading in every minimal time frame I have. Some of the challenges that I drew from our reading was how the students should be comfortable reading, they shouldn’t feel like they were not ‘born’ to read. They should always feel capable and willing to read for their interest. 

I’m excited about teaching reading for the fun, engaging lesson plans I’ll be able to make based on some of my favorite books. As well as seeing my students bloom throughout the year into comfortable, capable readers. I volunteer in my brothers first grade class and what scares me is the fact that not all my students will be at the same place in their reading and it would break my heart to not be able to recognize those students in my class who are behind. There is only so much time in the school day and not every parent is committed to their children’s education and with that comes more heart break because every student has an enormous potential and not being able to help that student flourish as reader terrifies me.