Historical Fiction

Growing up I always hated reading historical fiction. I always thought it was boring probably because I didn’t really find history that interesting. Now that I am older, I have really started to enjoy historical fiction novels. I think that now that I know more about the history aspect behind them, I find them an interesting way to learn about different time periods.

A few of my classes in college have required me to read historical fiction such as The Book Thief, and Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry. I found both of these books to be very interesting and they gave me a better look into how things were during these time periods. Both of these books deal with a time when groups of people were being persecuted; Jews in The Book Thief, and African Americans in Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry. I have found that by reading about these events in a novel, I am able to connect to the characters and get a feel for what it was like for these people. Reading about these things in a history text book, I always knew that they were terrible, but by reading about it in a novel where I could connect to the characters, I really got a better idea of all the little things that people went through back then.

One thing that was brought up in class that I had never really thought about was the believability of these types of books. This is especially prevalent in The Book Thief. Being in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time plays such a huge role in this story especially involving life and death. In reference to this, someone asked at what point does the story like that stop being believable? Personally, I tend to be an optimist and like to believe that something like that could have actually happened in real life, although when I really think about it, I feel as though it is not very likely. What do you think? Do you think that historical fiction books are mostly believable, or do you think that sometimes the author takes things too far making it unrealistic?

What amount of violence should be allowed in children’s books?

I can’t say that I really have a firm opinion on this because I feel like I don’t know how much kids should be exposed to at particular ages. Who am I to say that a kid isn’t mature enough to see or read about something?

What is an appropriate age to expose children to death in literature? I feel as though whatever age a child (at least reading age) is, he or she would be told if someone in his or her family died. So death definitely shouldn’t be censored, but what about other things like murder, torture? Where should the line be drawn? And when should kids be exposed to sex? All of these things are a part of life so kids shouldn’t be denied the right to read about these things, right? But then again you don’t want kids to do these things that they read about. So I guess I would have to say that kids can be exposed to violence and sex and whatever else when they learn that they shouldn’t imitate everything they read. It has to be individual to each child because every child develops at a different rate. So then the parents should decide? Maybe I am over thinking this, but it is really confusing.

"Girl Books" and "Boy Books"

In today's society many people are focused on the idea of blurring gender lines so that there are not specific roles for females and specific roles for males.  In order to do this, it would make sense to teach children at a young age that there is no such thing as "girl books" or "boy books" but instead literature is open to any gender.  Since literature is such a huge part of children's learning experiences, teachers might think it is a good idea to stock their classroom library with gender neutral texts.  While I do agree that younger children should be exposed to this type of literature, I think it might also be beneficial to provide students with "girl books" and "boy books" so they can find something to relate to while they are growing up.  With this thought in mind, I started to think back to the types of stories I was most interested in as a child.  Once I started reading on my own, I fell in love with the American Girl book series, The Babysitters Club, and other book series that featured female characters that I could relate to.  Of course, my older brother would never have been as engaged in those books as I was and he had his own idea of what a good book was.  In order to make reading an enjoyable experience for children as they grow up and enter confusing and sometimes awkward phases of adolescence, it is important that they can relate to the character's or scenarios in the book.  If children are going to read they most likely want it to be something that is meaningful to them.  I am curious as to what your opinions on putting "girls books" and "boys books" on the classroom shelf are?  Instead of assigning books to the class as a whole, teachers could provide boys and girls separate reading to see how well they relate or react to the text.  While I do not think this should be an ongoing trend in the classroom, I do think it could be a good way to get children to enjoy reading.

The 90s are All That...

Recently, well Monday, Teen Nick decided to bring back a lot of the shows that were super popular in the 90s, with the title of the line up being "The 90s are All That". All of my friends were super excited and for the most part I was elated but it got me thinking, were the 90s all that? I mean as a child I didn't have cable but I made it appoint to watch "Keenan & Kel" and "All That" so these shows are a wonderful look back of the innocence and craziness of the 90s.

I began thinking about all of the books that I would read when I was growing up and how children are now. Whatever happened to "Ameilia Bedilia"or "Clifford" or "The Babysitter's Club" or "Goosebumps" these are the books that I grew up with as a child. Now children have "Gossip Girl" and "Harry Potter" and "Dora". Most of these books are t.v. shows and movies, which did happen in some instances but it wasn't like every book had a movie, it left a lot to the child's imagination.

When I was in school I used to LIVE, and I do mean LIVE, for The Scholastic Book Fair! Do they still have those? If not children in today's society are seriously missing out! When I used to get those order tissue-paper like order forms I would fill up my order form and order til my little heart was content. And once I got my books I would stay up all night and read! Do kids still do that anymore? Do kids still need to? With movies and tv shows why would they need to, right?

You can sit your child in front of a tv and let Dora teach him or her. Even though we had Sesame Street that show was JAM PACKED full of learning! Do they still have Sesame Street? If not then I would be outraged! That show was pivotal in a lot of the 90s babies upbringing! Shows like Sesame Street encouraged children to read but today shows encourage you to 'stay tuned'.

So now I ask you to look back on your upbringing and compare it to children in today's society's upbringing, how do you feel about this? How do you compare our media compares to the current media?

Were the 90s All That?

Whether a book is worth its price

Today, a couple of the classmates had some arguments over the pages in the book the three pigs being completely blank. Some argued that the blank pages were a waste of space and paper; some argued that it is part of the art work. And I was one of those who liked to pages and was thinking of it from an art perspective. Growing up liking art, art works tend to get my attention more than almost anything else. When I was clipping through the pages of the Three Pigs, I thought this was just going to be another typical children’s book. However, while reading the story, started to realized that there were actually two different kinds of drawing in the book. And for how amazingly the illustrator had link the relationship between the two kinds to the story, I was very pleased by the mind of the art. To me, it is a new way of thinking. Even just having the characters jumping and playing around with the book pages made me think out side of the box.

The second part I like the art work of this book was because of the blank pages and the use of negative space. When I flipped through those pages, I really felt that I was somehow being pulled into the story, with them, flying around in the paper plane. And I felt like that the blank page really created the feeling of free and sky being unlimited. To some extend, I felt like, my emotion were being drag into the free space along with how the paper plane were going, which may also represent how I was somehow feeling released from the old fashion the three little pigs story. Personally, I think that the art work in this book really did a good job of drawing audiences into the story with them.

Another point that was being brought up during the discussion was the conversation bubbles. I personally think that even though reader should probably be able to figure the story line without many of the conversation bubbles, I still think that the bubble did a significant job of building the relationship between the characters in the book and the audiences. Because words in the bubbles, like a couple classmates had pointed out, perhaps spoke for audiences’ mind as they read through the story. Especially with the page where the pig mention about there being a person out there reading them. I thought that the author really did a good job using every little possible detail to create the atmosphere of the story line and mood of this book.

Will You Read JK Rowling's Next Work?

In all the Harry Potter mania I saw an article/ poll asking readers if they would read JK Rowling’s next book. The article said that she has admitted multiple times to be writing since she wrote the last Potter book. I wanted to ask you all the same question. Will you read her next book?

I’m not sure if I would read her next book or not. The Harry Potter books created an amazing world with such interesting descriptions. I don’t see how one author could create two of those worlds. Or would she even try? What if she wrote a different sort of book, something that wasn’t fantasy? Would it still be great, or was what made Harry Potter great, the fantasy elements and in-depth world.

Sometimes I don’t like to ruin series. I won’t see a sequel if I like a movie and I don’t think the sequel has potential, or if a series goes on too long and starts burning out I wont finish it. I don’t like to see books, TV show or movies ruined. If she wrote a bad book I don’t think the Harry Potter craze would be ruined but maybe it would just be awkward. I don’t think, after a series like Harry Potter, there could really be a high expectation from her next book. I mean, how could you top Harry Potter?

The Three Pigs: Hit or Miss?

Today's discussion of David Weisner's, Three Little Pigs, was extremely interesting to me because it sparked a lot of emotion in the class.  I have not had much experience reading post-modern texts so I will agree with many of you that it was not the easiest story to follow.  However, with that being said I think introducing post-modern texts in the classroom is definitely a good way to encourage students to use critical thinking skills at a young age, which are essential tools in the real world.  While I definitely respect everyones opinion about reading post-modern texts to students, I am curious to know how all of you feel?  Personally, I think sharing traditional literature to new readers is a great way to ease students into reading, however once students have mastered basic skills they need to be challenged so they don't get stuck in a pattern of reading.  At this stage I truly believe post-modern texts will offer them a new level of difficulty that expands on their reading skills and offers them a new way to look at literature.  I can't speak for the rest of you but I know I never had much experience with reading post-modern texts when I was in elementary school which is probably why it seems to strange to me as I read it now.  But if students are introduced to these kinds of texts now, who knows how far they can take that knowledge as they continue their education.

Interested in ancient times literature/language

It is also very interesting to learn language from ancient times while studying children’s literature. Kids mostly started language/literature by listening to stories and reciting poems. For example, kids from China started learning ancient Chinese literature such as poems instead of modern literature. Parents sometimes force their children to recite the ancient literature artworks. Personally, I think the ancient language is more concise than modern language. What I know from Chinese language, a certain word in ancient Chinese language need to be described by a modern sentence and this might be one of the reasons why Chinese ancient poems is so hard to translate to other languages. Lots of ancient Chinese poets began to learn literature once they can read and some famous ones began to write poems when they were teenagers. (e.g, “E E E” is a poem written by Luobing Wang when he was only 7 years old, and this piece of poem are one of the most poems from Tang Dynasty.) 

I took linguistic for the first summer session and I learned something about English history. The history of English can be roughly divided by the Old English (OE) (450-1100), Middle English (ME) (1100-1500), Early Modern English (EME) (1500-1650) and Shakespeare is one of the famous authors in Early Modern English literature. Shakespeare's work was written in Early Modern English, and we can not truly understand them somehow. However, they are still being highly spoken of and being studied by lots of researchers. 

Studying old time literature can not only help kids practice their language skills but also give them a general idea about how the society was looked like in that period of time. Different styles of literature artwork can help students understand hoe history developed as time went by and what were people thoughts in that time.

Where have all the good stories gone?

I miss the old classic stories like The Ugly Duckling and Rumpelstiltskin and I wonder why there aren't any new stories that become classics.

Every story now seems to need to have a twist for it to considered good. These twists include the change in point of view in Voices in the Park and the breaking out of the pictures in The Three Pigs. It's not that I don't like these books because I do, but seriously what happened to the honest good stories that didn't need twists to be good, the content was enough to satisfy the readers?

Even in children's movies now a days seem to be cluttered with computer animation and talking cars being the characters. Why can't they make new movies like Snow White or The Little Mermaid? Those movies were truly interesting and imaginative on their own with no frills.

This brings me to the true question: Are all the good thoughts gone? Are there no original story lines? I feel like the answer to this question has to be no, hope cannot be lost. Given the recent history of children's films, there have been some good ones, like Toy Story 3 and Wall-E, but when it comes down to it if I was picking a movie for a kid to watch it would be The Lion King or Beauty and The Beast or something along those line. I would choose those movies over the others because they are amazing stories and I wish there were some new ones like that :(.

Why Are You the Way You Are?

I have a recurring thought—why am I the way I am? This is constantly going through my head. We are supposed to be individuals, but in the end our upbringing is what shapes up to be who we are as adults. Essentially, all my likes, dislikes, looks, decisions, etc. were not originally mine to call my own. They had to have come from things I was taught, or how I was conditioned, in childhood. You can say kids are a younger version of their parents, but what else influences them in the early stages? Children pick things up rather quickly and I think that in addition to their parents they also learn from other people around them such as, teachers, siblings, and peers. However, I bet children's books have a significantly large impact on kids too. It seems that the story lines and illustrations in children's books give them an idea of what is normal. When I read to my 3-year-old niece, at the time, she would get very involved with books pointing at pictures and asking a lot of questions. A few months later I knew she learned from that book when she would randomly bring it up. It is scary to think about all of the books out there. Why are there criminals in the world? What books did they read in their childhood that made them like that? Same goes for doctors and any other profession. Is it really that the doctors out there were smarter children or was it their upbringing? Think about how much different your life would be if you read different books than you did as a child even if you had the same parents. Do you think there would be a difference? There are so many factors that it is hard to tell.

Gender Stereotypes in Literature

Today's class discussion on the different stereotypes presented in traditional literature really got me thinking hard about where these stereotypes come from and why we don't try to challenge them more often.  Most of the book shelves either at home or in schools are filled with stories we are all familiar with such as Cinderella, The Three Pigs, and Little Red Riding Hood.  These are stories students, teachers, and parents all feel comfortable hearing and reading because they are simple-minded tales that are universally known.  They embed morals of honestly, kindness, and purity, however they are also introduce extremely gender specific roles and expectations to children at ages as young at 1 years old.  Already girls are playing house and boys are wrestling each other because they believe that is how they are supposed to act in society.  Rarely will you come across parents who encourage their four-year-old son to wear nail polish or their daughter to go hunting, so maybe it is up to educators to teach students that gender roles are not set in stone.  If the classroom library is filled with fairytales and folklore literature, what kind of message are you sending to your students? Traditional literature does not challenge gender roles, instead it reinforces them.  My philosophy on traditional literature is that it should be used as a way to address the stereotypes that were so prominent in the past but are now changing and shifting in today's society.  Instead of putting classics in the classroom library for children to use during free reading, it might be a good idea to hold onto those books separately so you can use them to introduce gender stereotypes and make a lesson out of it.  If we are working towards blurring the lines of gender specific roles we have to start at a young age, and reintroducing children's stories of the past is only holding future generations back from crossing those lines.

Chinese Poetry

This past summer I had an opportunity to go to China for a study tour program through the Global Educators Cohort at MSU. We visited Beijing, Shanghai, and Chonqing. While in Beijing I co-taught a Chinese Language Arts lesson to a 6th grade classroom. Luckily the other student I co-taught the lesson with was originally from MSU and spoke Chinese so planning our lesson was fairly easy. The lesson we taught was bases on a famous Chinese poem. Before we taught our lesson we were given the chance to sit in on a lesson taught by the teacher that was very similar to the lesson we would be teacher, only with a different famous Chinese poem. I learned very quickly just how important poems were in China. In China poems are apart of their culture and are extremely important to the elders in China. The lesson consisted of the students reciting the poem multiple times. They were given the poem beforehand to have memorized before class. Then, after reciting it, they began to analyze what the poem meant and the teacher discussed the format of the poem (which was the same for every Chinese poem). All of the well-known poems, which were discussed in class throughout the year, were packed full in Chinese culture and important meanings. So, the teacher picked the poem apart line-by-line and broke down what exactly what the poem was trying to say. After analyzing the poem the teacher finished the lesson the teacher explain to the students how important it was to read the poem with emotion, because it is such an important part of the Chinese culture. The teacher went around one by one picking students to demonstrate how the poem should be read, then they finished the lesson by reading the poem out loud with as much emotion as possible.

I felt so honored to sit and watch this lesson, you could tell by how passionately the teacher taught the lesson just how important poems are to Chinese culture. As we talked to the teacher, principle, and other language arts teachers after teaching our lesson, I realized how much I didn’t know about poems. In my elementary, middle, and high school we didn’t place much importance on poetry. But, I wish teachers had stressed the importance of poetry and how it can be very cultural.

Was there much focus on poetry in your elementary, middle, and high schools? Do you think it would be beneficial to make poetry an important part of our culture like it is in China?

Folklore Fatalities

I just finished reading, "Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us," and not only did I find this article extremely interesting, but I found myself able to easily relate to it.  Growing up I can remember having at least three Disney princess parties and as I watch my younger sister, cousins, and students grow up, I see them following in those same footsteps.  This caused me to wonder how so many little girls from so many different generations and family backgrounds all end up interested in the same thing as children.  As I thought back to my childhood, I realized the problem lies in literature.  Whether it was a bedtime story, free read in school, or a cartoon on TV, I was surrounding myself with stories like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, much like little girls now continue to do.  I can remember my parents telling me to turn off the pg-13 movie I tried to sneak, or that swear words are bad words, but I can't ever remember my parents yelling at me to put down the Disney Princess book I had glued to my fingers.  If a book is filled with princesses, castles, and magic it can't be that bad, right?  I guess that is where my parents were a little naive because little did any of us know at the time, those books were actually molding the way I perceived the world.  

Now that I am studying to be a teacher, I am starting to wonder if folklore stories are something I even want in my classroom.  Sure they are fun, magical, happy stories, but is there a trap we need to be aware of?  Linda Christensen really made me think hard about this question.  Although introducing folklores are a good way to address stereotypes I can't help but think that some kids may miss the point of the lesson and instead use the folklore story as a way to point out and even reinforce stereotypes instead. I can't recall ever having a discussion about many of the common folklore stories I read as a kid, so without even realizing it I was being brainwashed to believe women must be beautiful to fall in love and men must be strong to win the affection of women. In the Folklore powerpoint on angel the last slide had the quote, "We shortchange children if we deny them the background information necessary for understanding the countless references to folklore in contemporary books and society."  This quote really stuck out to me because it puts the purpose of reading folklores in perspective.  While it is possible that children will take the story and characters in folklore to be the truth, it is still important that children learn these simple, universal stories so that they have a reference point to other stories as they start to become even more involved in literature.  When it comes to folklores I think one of the most important things to include is a thorough and critical discussion about the book after it is read.  Instead of allowing children to use the book strictly as a fairytale read, try having the children write their own versions, reviews, or critiques of the text instead.

 

Gay Couples in Children's Books?

The following article is about a string of children's books (for ages 4-11) released in London that have gay couples as the primary characters. It has caused a lot of controversy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/mar/11/gayrights.books

I, personally, disagree with the gay characters. Homophobia is a controversial issue for more grown up people. Just like the topics such as sex and drugs, homophobia is not something the majority of people stand up and clap for. It is generally frowned upon or just not talked about publicly. There are those households out there with children who have two parents of the same sex, but I think that showing it in the children's books might be too over the top for the other children. The world is changing though. Sex, drinking, and drugs are more openly talked about, but I think most everybody would agree that it is still too young for a four year old to read about. The child would probably not even be able to comprehend the situation. It all depends on what leaders in the world want to see. Unfortunately, it is mostly up to them how future generations grow up.

What are your thoughts about gay couples in children's books? How do you think the release of books in London will affect people?

Parent Assigned Reading

Today in class the subject of having a parent clip articles or short stories for a child to read was touched on. While some, or maybe even most, people might think back about this time with fond remembrance, that is certainly not the case for me. I can vividly remember being a kid and my dad sharing articles with me, and it felt like homework. I hated when he would bring me things to read, and then expected us to talk about it. It was always so frustrating, I couldn’t understand why on earth my dad wanted me to take MORE time on (what felt like) assigned reading when I already had homework to do. I think even if he had sat there and read it with me it would have felt like a punishment of some kind. That’s not to say all the reading we did felt like punishment because when it came to bed time stories The Hobbit was something I looked forward to every night. So, is the problem with the article the expectation of conversation? The anticipation of reading something which was probably going to be really boring? I guess in my point of view, because it was such a negative experience, it is hard for me to see how any child could appreciate these instances of knowledge dispersal.

Now, that I am older my dad still sends me articles, and while I do read them on occasion and they do have value, I still have enough assigned reading to keep me plenty occupied. Quite frankly, I still don’t want to read random articles in my free time unless they are of my choosing. It could be that just the memory of having to do this extra work disinclines me to read what he sends. So, as parents and I suppose even teachers, how do we make reading feel like less of an assignment? Is it possible to appease students when it comes to reading? Is there a formula to add an element of fun which can make these little tid-bits of knowledge more bearable? I know, as a parent myself, I will one day want to impose knowledge on my child that he may not necessarily want to participate in. However, I think in order for him to have a more positive outlook on these extra nuggets of knowledge I throw his way I will try to do it in a more approachable way. What that way might be is still a mystery, but maybe some of you have suggestions!

Online Reading - Blogs!

Okay, clearly this is the entire reason behind the existence of this blog, and our participation. However, I was curious about the different varieties of blogs and online journals that people regularly read or upload to. There is such a vast range of blogs and journals that sometimes i'm overwhelmed. There are blogs about makeup, shopping, fashion, tech products, art, crafts, gardening, cooking, baking...online journals that range from ranting teenagers, online comedians, sophisticated discussion seekers...The menu of options is so endless, I feel like I'm at the cheesecake factory.

Personally, I'll admit to having taken part in the ranting teenager category, and attempted an art and baking blog. note, key term; attempted. I'm not much of a writer, however I have come to enjoy reading blogs very much. I regularly follow a number of cooking and baking blogs, as well as arts and crafts blogs. Following in the train of thought behind our first blog assignment (where we watched "Shift Happens")I believe that at this day and age, many people do much of their learning online. My knowledge is enriched daily, not only by the new recipes and DIY project ideas, but by the millions of voices that are available at our very fingertips. Much of my writing has been benefited and influenced by reading various different styles of writing available on the internet! We all have a unique voice when it comes to writing, but we also have ranging voices for different written settings. I feel as though reading online provides us with the opportunity to experience a small glimpse at the reality of this fact. A few questions you should ask yourself; What have i learned from online reading? and how has it impacted my writing and way of interpreting literature?

Is anyone else frustrated with creating discussion questions for the assigned reading?

OK, I've been doing the assigned reading, I swear I have. But as I read, specifically from the textbook and A Family of Readers, I can't think of questions to pose for a whole class discussion. Are the questions supposed to be based on reader response, like, “How did you feel about what the author said about...?” or “How did you interpret this statement?” Are they supposed to be based on how we will apply the information from the reading to our teaching, like “Will you try any of these poetry techniques in your classroom?” or “How will you address poetry as a teacher?” Or are the questions supposed to challenge the author? I have no examples for this at the moment...

With, A Family of Readers, I appreciate what Alice Schertle says about poetry, but no questions come to mind. With, The Joy of Reading, I make notes on the margins and I got inspired to try a few things in my English classroom next year, but still no questions came to mind. In the texts, I mostly write ideas that I would like to incorporate into my classroom, like the teacher who posted literary elements on the wall and asked students to provide examples when they found them, or student generated word list that looked at the emotion, imagery and music of poetry. I feel inspired to start class with a poem and encourage students to find poems at home and bring them in to share with the class, but I have no questions...

So, as I was reading, I tried to think about questions from our previous class sessions, they were all pretty good, except for mine :) But I have forgotten them. So, if anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate the help. Until then, I'll start writing down questions posed in class tomorrow and Wednesday and hope I figure it out.

Multicultural Childrens Books

I recently came across this article from Scholastic entitled “How to Choose the Best Multicultural Books”. The article talked about different books that are good for children to read about different cultures. It listed a bunch of books, and also gave tips for picking out a high-quality multicultural children’s book. I found this article a little ironic because we had just discussed Scholastic’s book clubs in class. In class, we looked through several flyers for books offered for various age groups. None of these flyers had very many multicultural books, if any at all. The characters in the vast majority of the books offered are white. I thought it was interesting that Scholastic tries to tell people what books provide good depictions of different cultures, yet they don’t offer very many multicultural books in their ads. This article makes it seem as though Scholastic really cares about getting children exposure to books that properly depict other cultures. If this is the case, however, why don’t they offer more multicultural books in their flyers, which would give children more access to the books that they claim are great ways to learn about different cultures? I believe that it is important for children to have access to many different books about different cultures. Since Scholastic reaches so many different children, providing ample multicultural book options in their flyers would be a great way for children to have access to books that they otherwise may not have access to.

Personal Opinion or Product Placement??

When reading the text "A Family of Readers", I can't help but let my advertising instincts kick in. As an ad major, each time I come across the name of a specific book I can't help but wonder if the author genuinely recommends this book or if they were paid to mention the product in their book. In my advertising and society class we learned that there is almost no such thing as free product publicity. Often times when you think a product is placed in pop culture by accident, it is on purpose. For example the choice of soda or snack chosen on a television show. We also learned about the new trend in authors being offered money to mention specific brands in their books vs. being vague. So, when reading about the author's recommendation for The Stinky Cheese Man and many other popular books, I wonder if they were dodging other offers before finally deciding to mention it "in passing" in the picture book chapter.
I am interested to see what others think, both those in advertising and those who are not. Do you think that the author was paid to mention the product or do you think it is their genuine opinion? Before you jump to answer, think about why they chose that book over the hundreds of other examples they could have chose that fit the same category and would have also been a perfect fit.

Reading to Dogs

I saw a short article on the Huffington Post today about reading programs where the students read to dogs. I guess it’s a growing trend that can be done with therapy dogs in programs like Paws to Read or just at home. Children said that they liked reading to dogs because they were less hesitant than in front of a human audience and read more confidently. Students acknowledged a fear of hearing laughter when they make reading mistakes. I think this is a good point to think about for people becoming teachers. Why do children feel so scared to read in class? Is it because we have proven laughter to be a possible reaction to their attempts or does the classroom not feel comfortable enough to them? I think as a teacher it is important to establish a level of comfort between you and the students and the students with each other.

When helping out in classrooms I have seen less confident students reading at a level lower than they should just so that they can race through the pages. This fear is holding some kids back from reading at a level that would be appropriately challenging for them, in order to improve. I think this shows that teachers really need to be conscious of book choices and maybe break students into smaller reading groups. Placing students in groups with kids at their same level sometimes falls into criticism because people will say they don’t have a chance to improve and aren’t being challenged but I think a group of similar readers can be challenged together. They can be pushed together at the same level to move to the next level and probably feel more comfortable if their peers are making similar reading errors.

Purpose of Poetry

I have to admit that in the past one of my least favorite topics in school was poetry.  Not only did I not understand what the author was trying to communicate, but from a technical standpoint everything we talked about went way over my head.  I remember becoming easily frustrated by the abstract qualities within a poem, which was very discouraging as a student.  At a young age I decided poetry just wasn't for me.  As I grew older and discovered my passion for teaching language arts, I began to wonder how I was going to fake my love for poetry so that my own students did not develop the same negativity I did.

Luckily, in an english course I took last semester the dreaded topic of poetry was revisited, but this time in a different manner.  Instead of focusing on the specific elements within a poem, the professor allowed us to explore our own mind to interpret different meanings ourselves.  Eliminating the questions and answers, lectures and note taking, and painstakingly tedious quizzes allowed me to see the benefits and inspiration poetry can instill.  In chapter 9 of, "The Joy of Children's Lit," Denise Johnson addressed poetry in much the same way my professor did.  While the elements of poetry are introduced throughout the chapter, she makes it clear that teachers should not make poetry terminology the focus of poetry lessons.  I think the reason a lot of students find themselves lost and uninterested in poetry is because of the way it is taught.  In fact, I don't think poetry should be something that is taught at all, I think it should be more about thinking and feeling.  If teachers are uninterested in poetry themselves, what makes them think a student is going to find joy in the topic either?  On page 237 Johnson quotes, "It is essential that teachers reacquaint themselves with the power and pleasure of poetry."  As with any area within the curriculum, educators need to have a love and passion for what they are teaching if they hope to instill that same love within their students.
I found this love for poetry once I realized the emotional connection one can make with a poem.  Unlike my belief growing up, I realized that poetry is not a scientific equation or exact recipe, but instead it offers an emotional appeal that should reflect the real emotions of its readers.

Integrating Technology in the Classroom

Most of us are already familiar with iPod's since it has become the biggest trend in MP3 players thus far.  However, the trend has taken an unexpected turn and now what used to be a burden to teachers is a useful and educational tool in the classroom.  That's right, teachers are ENCOURAGING the use of iPod's during the school day.  
The education system sees many benefits in using iPod Touch's in the classroom, especially within special education settings.  The Touch can function as an efficient educational tool inside and outside of the classroom.  Not only is it less expensive for schools to purchase iPod Touch's over other netbooks, but with free WiFi students and teachers can explore depths of education beyond the classroom walls by having more opportunities to use the web.  Its portability and low maintenance are yet another reason the iPod Touch is a great addition to the classroom, however the main reason I believe the integration of iPod's is beneficial is in the field of special education. 
 Assistive Technology is a huge "buzz word" in the world of disabilities today, and the iPod Touch is a perfect example of such technology.  While all students can gain a better education by using the Touch to solve math problems, read ebooks, and learn foreign languages, I feel that some students in special education can truly gain the most from using this technology.  
The iPod Touch can offer students with social disabilities, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, with a means of communication.  Many students on the spectrum are hindered by their inability to verbally communicate with others causing them to become frustrated by their lack-of-control over their own lives.  Those of you who have worked with students on the spectrum know that they are some of the brightest individuals out there, however without proper means of communication they can never live up to their full potential.    Using inexpensive and sometimes free apps found on the iPod Touch such as one called Proloquo2Go, students with ASD are able to touch icons that voice questions or comments so that they can communicate with others.  Other apps have built in scheduled activities so that students can simply touch a button to communicate about what they wish to do.  
The iPod Touch is a new, easy, and inexpensive alternative to the once popular text-to-speech machines that are more than five times the size and twenty times the cost of the Touch!  I truly believe that integrating iPod Touch's into the classroom will provide students with learning disabilities a more individualized education so that they can continue to grow as children in and outside of the classroom.

Shift Happens - Teaching, Technology, and Change

Shift Happens - Technology, Teaching and Employment


How do you think this is going to impact you personally and how might this impact education (both as a teacher and as a future or potential parent)? What does it make you think about and what does this mean for literacy and literature?