The book that I plan to read is What Baby Wants, by Phyllis Root. The age group targeted is around five to six years old. This book could work in kindergarten or early first grade. The book has some word play and has many animals that make many sounds. The book is entertaining and will keep the children’s attention. The book keeps the children guessing when the baby will calm down. It becomes sort of a guessing game for the children. Also the kids understand that in books it is okay to make words out of sounds. There are also parts of the book where the children are able to participate, so I expect children to have fun participating in the book.
I read the book to some my two nephew’s one who is six and the other is five They followed along and were having fun with the book. They liked that they were able to anticipate when the baby would cry. If I paused when the baby was to cry in the book, they would do it for me.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Chapter 11
I never thought about contemorary realistic fiction as a genre. This chapter has made me realize this genre exists, and also is the most popular for children. I can understand why this genre is the most popular. It lets children identify with realistic plots that they can imagine as themselves. They can compare the characters to themself, and this is extremely important to kids. Kids want to read about people who have similar interests as themselves.
Craft Lesson: My Many Colored Days
TEKS
(4) Listening/speaking/communication. The student communicates clearly by putting thoughts and feelings into spoken words. The student is expected to:
(A) learn the vocabulary of school such as numbers, shapes, colors, directions, and categories (K-1);
(B) use vocabulary to describe clearly ideas, feelings, and experiences (K-3);
Grades To Teach: Kindergarten
Discussion
Children can find it difficult to understand why they are upset or why they are happy. Understanding their emotions is not an easy task. My Many Colored Days does a great job interpreting the emotion linked with a color and an animal. The concept of understanding one's emotion is easier when you can link it with a color. Everyone's interpretation of color and emotion is different and the student's will be different. It will show expression and will show a grasp of emotion.
How To Teach It
I would set up stations each with a different color. I would also give the student as many choices for animals as possible. Each student would choose a color and an emotion; such as happy, sad, etc. The student will then relate the color with the emotion and an animal and give an explanation what it means. The student would pick three in all and color the animal. The teacher will help them write the expression they want.
(4) Listening/speaking/communication. The student communicates clearly by putting thoughts and feelings into spoken words. The student is expected to:
(A) learn the vocabulary of school such as numbers, shapes, colors, directions, and categories (K-1);
(B) use vocabulary to describe clearly ideas, feelings, and experiences (K-3);
Grades To Teach: Kindergarten
Discussion
Children can find it difficult to understand why they are upset or why they are happy. Understanding their emotions is not an easy task. My Many Colored Days does a great job interpreting the emotion linked with a color and an animal. The concept of understanding one's emotion is easier when you can link it with a color. Everyone's interpretation of color and emotion is different and the student's will be different. It will show expression and will show a grasp of emotion.
How To Teach It
I would set up stations each with a different color. I would also give the student as many choices for animals as possible. Each student would choose a color and an emotion; such as happy, sad, etc. The student will then relate the color with the emotion and an animal and give an explanation what it means. The student would pick three in all and color the animal. The teacher will help them write the expression they want.
Children's Literature Autobiography
I relate literature to a roller coaster. I have had so many up and downs in my life. There are times where literature was a fun activity and then there were times when reading was a chore. As I grew older I innately began to distinguish two types of literature, one where I do on my own time and the other which is required. Over a period of time my leisure reading continually waned whereas my required reading began to increase.
My experience in literature stems from my parents. My mother would read to me nightly. I remember the first book I loved was the Ugly Duckling. I loved the book so much that I memorized the words to the book and tricked my family into believing that I could read at age four with no training. When I entered school I was exposed to books and reading, so it was an easy transition when I entered school. I picked up reading easily and was the top reader in my class for first, second, and third grade. I was constantly complimented on my reading by my teachers and it felt good to have such positive reinforcement in my reading. I was encouraged to go to the library on my own to check out books as a reward for finishing work early. I do not remember much of the books that I read early, but there are certain books I do remember. Willy Wonka and Space Travel, Matilda, and tons of biographies on athletes were some of the literature I was reading.
One of the best literary moments in school came on a read aloud in the fifth grade. My teacher read, Where the Red Fern Grows aloud. This book reached me as well as others in the class. If the class was acting up our teacher would threaten to not read the book to us in class. This would actually work on most of the class because we were so encaptured in the book. To be honest I do not remember the plot or many characters, but I do remember the impact the book had me and my classmates. It was my first experience with a book that grabbed hold of me. I had never felt that feeling before. I also remember in the same grade, that the teacher would let us read silently every Friday for one hour to our selves. She would let us choose any book we wanted and eat a snack and a clear liquid. This was my only teacher that I can remember that allotted time for the whole class to have free reading time. She had the most impact early on in my development as a reader.
The next year the only type of reading that our teacher did was in the form of book reports. Most of the time I did not even read the book I would just copy from the back of the book, and I received my passing grades with no problem. This was pretty much the theme for most of middle school. We did read from the text aloud in class and then answer some questions after we read. One creative idea was the construction of a diorama and then the creation of a documentary from biographies that we could choose. Those were the highlights from middle school.
The beginning of high school began the trend to Advanced Placement classes. This entailed the reading of many fine classics and then doing some sort of literary analysis. Teachers always harped on thinking deeper, delve deeper, or analyze this book. Use a yellow highlighter for diction and a green one for imagery. This was what happened in most of my literature classes in High School. The author that appears over and over again, and is not a welcome sight for any teenager is William Shakespeare. To this day I can not read Shakespeare. Two reasons I do not like Shakespeare is first I can not understand his plays and second it is irrelevant to teenagers. The worst book that was assigned was The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner. I did not understand this book and I do not think that I got past the second chapter.
There were a few good books that I read in High School that I really enjoyed, but they only let me down. My favorite book was Wuthering Heights. I really enjoyed it and I read it over Christmas break. I finished the book way ahead of schedule and I was looking forward to actually knowing something about the book in class. The teacher began by analyzing some theme about the book, which I really did not get. The theme she went over was not something I was interested in. I thought that since I did not get the same feeling as she talked about, that I did not fully understand the book myself. I felt that I was not smart because I did not think intelligently like the others in the class. Now I realize that just because I did not pick up the same theme does not mean that I am any less intelligent. I had my own thoughts hers were from literary analysis book she bought. There was also no major discussion or feeling from the class. This was extremely disappointing because I really enjoyed the book and was looking forward to discussing the book for it not to happen. Another book I really enjoyed was The Good Earth. This was another book that I really enjoyed, but the teacher did not really care much about it. So all we did was just skim it and move on to some other book.
Overall I do enjoy reading but I suffered a rough patch during the high school years and it took a while to regain some sort of mild passion for books. Nowadays I read John Grisham books, historical books and my favorite type of reading is fantasy books. In writing this I have learned that I do enjoy reading and I started off well in my early years reading. In middle school I continued to read a little, but in high school my reading declined significantly. During college reading was not on priority list and now that I am trying to obtain my teachers certification I started to read again. I did feel discouraged about reading at one time, but no longer can I let negative experience influence what I do.
My experience in literature stems from my parents. My mother would read to me nightly. I remember the first book I loved was the Ugly Duckling. I loved the book so much that I memorized the words to the book and tricked my family into believing that I could read at age four with no training. When I entered school I was exposed to books and reading, so it was an easy transition when I entered school. I picked up reading easily and was the top reader in my class for first, second, and third grade. I was constantly complimented on my reading by my teachers and it felt good to have such positive reinforcement in my reading. I was encouraged to go to the library on my own to check out books as a reward for finishing work early. I do not remember much of the books that I read early, but there are certain books I do remember. Willy Wonka and Space Travel, Matilda, and tons of biographies on athletes were some of the literature I was reading.
One of the best literary moments in school came on a read aloud in the fifth grade. My teacher read, Where the Red Fern Grows aloud. This book reached me as well as others in the class. If the class was acting up our teacher would threaten to not read the book to us in class. This would actually work on most of the class because we were so encaptured in the book. To be honest I do not remember the plot or many characters, but I do remember the impact the book had me and my classmates. It was my first experience with a book that grabbed hold of me. I had never felt that feeling before. I also remember in the same grade, that the teacher would let us read silently every Friday for one hour to our selves. She would let us choose any book we wanted and eat a snack and a clear liquid. This was my only teacher that I can remember that allotted time for the whole class to have free reading time. She had the most impact early on in my development as a reader.
The next year the only type of reading that our teacher did was in the form of book reports. Most of the time I did not even read the book I would just copy from the back of the book, and I received my passing grades with no problem. This was pretty much the theme for most of middle school. We did read from the text aloud in class and then answer some questions after we read. One creative idea was the construction of a diorama and then the creation of a documentary from biographies that we could choose. Those were the highlights from middle school.
The beginning of high school began the trend to Advanced Placement classes. This entailed the reading of many fine classics and then doing some sort of literary analysis. Teachers always harped on thinking deeper, delve deeper, or analyze this book. Use a yellow highlighter for diction and a green one for imagery. This was what happened in most of my literature classes in High School. The author that appears over and over again, and is not a welcome sight for any teenager is William Shakespeare. To this day I can not read Shakespeare. Two reasons I do not like Shakespeare is first I can not understand his plays and second it is irrelevant to teenagers. The worst book that was assigned was The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner. I did not understand this book and I do not think that I got past the second chapter.
There were a few good books that I read in High School that I really enjoyed, but they only let me down. My favorite book was Wuthering Heights. I really enjoyed it and I read it over Christmas break. I finished the book way ahead of schedule and I was looking forward to actually knowing something about the book in class. The teacher began by analyzing some theme about the book, which I really did not get. The theme she went over was not something I was interested in. I thought that since I did not get the same feeling as she talked about, that I did not fully understand the book myself. I felt that I was not smart because I did not think intelligently like the others in the class. Now I realize that just because I did not pick up the same theme does not mean that I am any less intelligent. I had my own thoughts hers were from literary analysis book she bought. There was also no major discussion or feeling from the class. This was extremely disappointing because I really enjoyed the book and was looking forward to discussing the book for it not to happen. Another book I really enjoyed was The Good Earth. This was another book that I really enjoyed, but the teacher did not really care much about it. So all we did was just skim it and move on to some other book.
Overall I do enjoy reading but I suffered a rough patch during the high school years and it took a while to regain some sort of mild passion for books. Nowadays I read John Grisham books, historical books and my favorite type of reading is fantasy books. In writing this I have learned that I do enjoy reading and I started off well in my early years reading. In middle school I continued to read a little, but in high school my reading declined significantly. During college reading was not on priority list and now that I am trying to obtain my teachers certification I started to read again. I did feel discouraged about reading at one time, but no longer can I let negative experience influence what I do.
My Many Colored Days
The aspect of this book that I really like is the use of color and expression. The book does not explicitly relate mood and color, but relates color with adjectives that describe animals; which in turn describe the mood. To me it is sort of ingenious. It makes me think why couldn't I come up with that. The book is also good to teach many concepts. Color, emotions, and animals can all easily be taught.
Chapter 10
I love the defense of fantasy in this chapter. I think that many people look down upon the genre of fantasy. Fantasy is one of my favorite types of reads, and I think that many times this genre is well written. In the upper level books such as Lord of the Rings there are underlying themes regarding the human condition. In this chapter I also like the motifs they classify in fantasy. It is interesting to read about all the different types of fantasies there are.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Craft Lesson: Minn and Jake
TEKS
(H) analyze characters, including their traits, motivations, conflicts, points of view, relationships, and changes they undergo (4-8);
Discussion
I think that most children can relate with the characters in Minn and Jake. The friendship they share and the events that shape their relationship are totally credible to children. Children may not be aware of their relationships and how important it is, whether it is their family or a friend. Children need to be made conscious of their social development.
How To Teach It
I would ask the children to read the book but not write any papers or present any material. I would ask them questions about the relationship of Minn and Jake, and then have them relate it personally. As the class is reading their book I would like to have them create a journal and update regularly with their own thoughts about the book. I would also like for them to mix their own experiences in, so they can compare with the book. They would turn in their journal. The point of the journal is to try and get them to analyze characters, traits, relationships, and motivations, but not by purpose. It will happen by trying to relate themselves to the characters in the book. When a person reads a book for fun, they do not intentionally analyze the book, but they think to themselves and compare to their own experiences. That is what I want to accomplish in this assignment.
(H) analyze characters, including their traits, motivations, conflicts, points of view, relationships, and changes they undergo (4-8);
Discussion
I think that most children can relate with the characters in Minn and Jake. The friendship they share and the events that shape their relationship are totally credible to children. Children may not be aware of their relationships and how important it is, whether it is their family or a friend. Children need to be made conscious of their social development.
How To Teach It
I would ask the children to read the book but not write any papers or present any material. I would ask them questions about the relationship of Minn and Jake, and then have them relate it personally. As the class is reading their book I would like to have them create a journal and update regularly with their own thoughts about the book. I would also like for them to mix their own experiences in, so they can compare with the book. They would turn in their journal. The point of the journal is to try and get them to analyze characters, traits, relationships, and motivations, but not by purpose. It will happen by trying to relate themselves to the characters in the book. When a person reads a book for fun, they do not intentionally analyze the book, but they think to themselves and compare to their own experiences. That is what I want to accomplish in this assignment.
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