Blog 6:

After navigating through the website, I chose the Diamond Bookshelf. At first I was a little confused by the website. Regardless, I explored it more and found a lot of resources. There is information regarding new graphic novels and news dealing with graphic novels. I also found suggestions for graphic novels. There are also many lesson plans that are detailed and for a variety of ages.

My book was The Best We Could Do. Reading this book concluded that wherever we are, the path that we chose will always be a bumpy road but the end can result in a prosperous reward. Life may seem tough but we all just have to put in all our effort into everything we do.

When reading a graphic novel, I read it like to how you would read a book. The way I read graphic novels is by going through it one panel at a time. I usually start with the dialogue and then the pictures. One thing I do differently is that I will often go back to the top of the page before continuing on, to look back at the pictures just to see what I’m missing. I often feel that I can better understand the pictures that were at the beginning so I can comprehend what is going on in the book. I would like to discuss with other how they read graphic novels and why. Trying a new method could lead to opening up more doors to learning and understanding.

 

Blog 7:

On page 166, the teacher asks students to pick their favorite genres of books. I think giving students the option makes the students a little more successful. I would love to allow my students to read what they desire to.

I like to read outdoor books. Sometimes I’ll read about survival books or even guides outside of the house. It contains so much knowledge and is quite interesting to me.  I love knowing how to make a handmade fishing pole or trap. It proves that I love being outdoors than being stuck in the house all day.

The main character in the novel “The Best We Could Do” by Thi Bui. As an adult, Thi wants to be more emotionally close to her parents. After a trip to Vietnam in her twenties, she begins researching her family history and asks her parents about their lives in Vietnam. She begins to trace back history through the birth stories of each of her parents’ children, including two babies who died. She then remembers her early childhood in America and the difficult relationship she and her brother had with their father who was a stay-at-home dad. She remembers their family home as a place that embodied the frustrations and challenges of being an immigrant in a new country. When she was a child, her father was a frightening figure. To better understand him as an adult, she asks him about his past. The story goes into talking about the difficulty of Bo’s background story and Ma’s background story and how they had to learn new ways to cope in America

I think “The Best We Can Do” is such an important story, especially with how corrup the world is. This book means a lot especially due to the fact of hardship and adaptation. It takes so much for some to understand the foreign land they are in and especially have to go through such tragedies in life.

Inside Out and Back Again was a book that I relate to quite well. The idea of this book correlates to family and how they survived as a group. A community can get through hardships as long as everyone puts in the effort to carry the weight. An individual is more likely to give in and submit because they feel like they are all alone. On the other hand, a group can cheer the individual up or talk them out of it and motivate them to get back up on their feet again. Just like in a classroom, everyone feels like they are all alone. The kids come from different backgrounds and stories. For the lesson plan that I chose to do, I wanted to involve them to get to know each other and allow one another to share.

The lesson plan starts with the kids writing a poem about who they are. This lesson plan would be ideal for 4th-6th graders. It would be executed the first week of school, if not the first day of class. For example, they could write where they are from, what ethnicity they fall in, how many siblings they have, favorite colors/TV shows, etc.  When they are done with their poems, I would have them get in a group to share their poems with each other. This would cover the Common Core of Language Arts by having them write and combine words into a sentence to create a poem. It would also make up the speaking and listening engagement portion of the Common Core by doing the group/one-on-one discussion by sharing their poems. Afterward, I would have them find a commonality with each other and explain why they like it. After giving some time, I would assign them a project of doing a paragraph or two about an interesting fact they learned about each other. This covers the Common Core of Language by being able to demonstrate their writing ability in grammar usage, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.

I imagine this taking place in a classroom where the kids feel safe since they would be spending the year with the peers they shared their poems with. As far as materials, only a piece of paper and a pencil. The goal I have in mind for this lesson plan is to allow the kids to comprehend that they can play with words by combining them and adding them onto a sentence to create a poem. They can rhyme or they can take their time, but in the end, this allows the kids to engage with the tools they need to achieve in higher education by learning to improve their English writing skills such as grammar, spelling, punctuation, and/or capitalization.

 

My free verse book is Inside Out and Back Again. I wanted to read this book because of how relatable it is to how my parents came to be in the United States. The stories that my mom would tell me always included them running away as refugee and coming to the United States to start a new chapter in their lives. This book definitely covers the idea of how they managed to keep up with life even though it seems to get tougher and tougher as the days goes by. I love how it comes the kid’s perspective and she see’s herself smart when she was given money to buy groceries and made a little adjustment to buy all of the neccessary items at the market. It reminded me of the idea that I when I was given money, I would make sure to have enough to buy myself something as well.  It was like a treat for doing a small minor errand for my mom. I loved every moment of this book. How ups and downs it would have and the hardships the family went through. Family is important as well as a place we call home. No matter where we are and how far we are, we will always have a place that we call home.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1J0T5DciZ4lAgiuaFgrvjtxe48Oxpm7LkCAThoVqor7E/edit?usp=sharing

 

For our make as a group project, we decided to explain a little bit about the characters. This book has allowed me to see that when a group of friends go through a set of hardships, they grow stronger together. I was once that kid who went through things that I never thought would make my friendship better. I always thought that things happen for a reason but in the moment, I could never realize why. This makes me see that when the world gives you lemon, you cut it open and share the slices with your friends so you all can make lemonade out of it. Add some sugar and salt to make the lemonade to your liking because in groups, friendships are hard to come by but when the opportunities to befriend with someone comes through, they are the loyal ones and are always there for you through thick and thin.