Week 14-1 Melina Marchetta in the Bookhenge: Writing from the “Deep Heart’s Core”

What does it take to get published?

Week 13-1 Designing Virtual Author Studies

I have chosen to read "Saving Francesca" for my second Melina Marchetta book.

Malina's Wall-Wisher

• Does mental illness affects a family differently than a physical illness? Do ppl deny the existence of the mental illness?


• Does mental illness have a significance in Marchetta's personal experiences?

In recent years, mental illness has become more recognized. Does this act as a crutch to those who in the past would have gone through life undiagnosed or does it allow them to get needed treatment even though nothing is guaranteed to work for any one individual?

Charlotte's Library

Week 12-1 Making the Bold Choice

"Essential Question: What is our responsibility to our students, our profession, and our world when it comes to students' right to read and the intellectual freedom to both consume and create media? It's time to deal with all of those questions about the controversy often caused or threatened by cutting-edge Young Adult literature. In this session, we will engage in a Collaborative Critical Inquiry to learn about the student's right to read and intellectual freedom. We'll also learn about book challenges and censorship. In this session, we'll focus on "Intellectual Freedom and Censorship in a Participatory Culture.” Our guest speaker will be Frances Bradburn, Project Director of NC's New Schools Project, a long-time champion for Young Adult literature and the chairman of the first Printz Award Committee." Censorship walks a fine line between protecting a vulnerable population (usually children) and cutting out essential parts of the human experience just because the current dominant culture considers them offensive, politically incorrect, or extreme in some other way . "...For some people the purpose of education is not the investigation of ideas but rather the indoctrination of certain set beliefs and standards." (from NCTE website) I believe that the importance of the community in the battle of intellectual freedom vs. censorship is understated in the NCTE article. The community has the power to support or discredit acts of censorship. Individuals and special interest groups can campaign for their viewpoints but ultimately it is the community (whose limits are defined by the battle lines drawn between the two sets of advocates). Advocates for intellectual freedom need to be aware of both the forum and their audience in order to effectively make their case. I belive that different communities are entitled to differenct censorship choices but overall an American standard for acceptable amounts of censorship should be apparent. One that supports our values and experiences as a nation. As teachers we should be defining and adhering to this standard including defending controversial choices that will benefits and enrich our students and our community.

• http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/righttoreadguideline


• http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/neverendingsearch/2011/03/31/skype-in-the-classroom/


• http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/knowledgequest/kqwebarchives/v36/362/362lamb.cfm


• http://nuhsd.org/NevadaUnion.cfm?subpage=913067

Blog conversations...

• http://teachingolddog.blogspot.com/2011/03/addendum-to-radical-change-entry-2.html


• http://graduscott.blogspot.com/2011/03/radical-blogging-bookhenge.html?showComment=1301957651153#c4972987383961303111

Week 11-1 Graphica, A Sign of Radical Change?

"Part 1: So how open to Radical Change in poetry are you? What was your response to "Skeleton Sky"? Part 2: Learn about Dresang’s Radical Change theory and then reflect on the books you personally have read as well as those you’ve “met” in class discussions and bookcasts to determine what books we've read this semester represent Radical Change and why. Part 3:Consider graphic novels as examples of Radical Change and how they might be integrated into the English curriculum. See Angela Trythall’s article for one teacher’s story. Readings: Dresang's Radical Change Theory Read the two chapters from Dresang's book in our eReserves. Radical Change Revisited: Dynamic Digital Age Books for Youth First take a look at: http://bookhenge2011.wikispaces.com/file/view/Angela_s_Action_Learning_Project_Proposal.pdf and then read her article -- http://bookhenge2011.wikispaces.com/file/view/Angela_Graphic_Novel_Article_for_Submission_to_English_Journalcc.pdf by Angela Trythall (ECI 2008 alumnae). Submitted to the English Teacher for publication." Graphic Novels have been a part of my life since I was six years old. I had a set of illustrated classics, including "Gulliver's Travels" and "Treasure Island". My first enjoyable experience reading on my own was the comic book series "ElfQuest" by Wendy and Richard Pini who are giants in the graphic/comic world. I have dabbled in graphic novels and comic books since but didn't find anything that really grabbed me that way again. I really felt that "Persepolis" was a triumph of communication. The simple, rough picutures grounded and really brought home all the emotion of the narrator's experiences.

Week 10-1 Nonfiction, the Neglected Stepchild

"Our essential questions are: 1. Why does Aronson refer to nonfiction as a "neglected stepchild" and is this an accurate description? 2. What's the connection between boys and nonfiction? 3. Why should we and how can we include more nonfiction reading in our middle and high school curricula? Readings are all from our textbook include: -- "The Pursuit of Happiness: Does American History Matter?" Aronson, Section 4, Chapter 10 -- "Woke Up, Got Out of Bed, Dragged a Comb Across My Head: Is the Past Knowable?" Aronson, Secion 4: Chapter 14 -- "Why Adults Can't Read Boy Readers?" -- Aronson, Secion 5: Chapter 13 -- "Biography and Its Perils" -- Aronson, Section 3: Chapter 9" I really enjoyed reading "Girl Interrupted". It had a very unique voice until the narrator decided that she was "cured" and the voice went flat. But that is an illustration of the writer's experience and is important for us the reader to experience as well. Non-fiction books and especially biographies play an important role in the modern information society. They give us a category that says here is how someone experienced and interpreted this event. It gives us a change to have a new perspective or explore a completely unknown but relevant experience. It is not just something made up that touches on the human experience in general, but something based on reality. (Note the popularity of "reality shows" on TV. If only non-fiction books were as well received.)

Week 9-1 So are we post-multicultural?

"For this seminar preparation, you will read one of Aronson's most famous and controversial essays from Horn Book (May/June 2001) on identity-based book awards (Coretta Scott King, Pura Belpre‚, etc.), Andrea Davis Pinkney's response, also from Horn Book (September/October 2001), and Aronson's response to his critics. All of these reading are from Section 1, pp. 3 - 23 in our textbook, Beyond the Pale." I really saw eye to eye with Frederick on this subject.

Week 8 and Spring Break: What I was up to...Welcome Baby Miranda!

Check out this video! As a first-time mom with a three-week old, I find this really adorable!

Mommy spends quality time with baby!

Week 7-1 Promise & Peril of YAL

What is Young Adult Literature?

Personally, I wish there was not a category called Young Adult Literature. I think it creates artificial restrictions and expectations for literature and other texts that would appeal to kids going through adolescence. I think that writers should write what they want and publishers should publish what they and the market want and then these adolecents can choose whether a book fits their maturity level, interests, and reading purpose.

There are so many varieties of text and ways for kids to access those texts that students should not be limited by somewhat arbitrary labels. Instead, there are many places in libraries and on the web which are able to suggest books that might appeal to students or stretch students' horizons ranging from the classic cannon to popular, modern books and even online texts.

A teacher's responsibility is to make sure that students are exposed to a wide variety of literature.

Week 5-2 The YA Controversy (follow-up)

What is better for the YA audience? A book with higher "literary quality", a more "popular" book, or a "readable" book?

1 comments: Cris said...

Hmmm good question. Now that you've experienced the Eva Perry teens talk about books, how would you answer your question? Any epiphanies?

February 19, 2011 9:54 PM

I believe that a "readable" book that kids enjoy is the highest praise a book can have. Kids will read more and so learn a valuable skill and experience. Forcing them to read books that OTHER people like or CRITICS say is high quality will not keep kids reading.

Week 6-2 Promise and Peril of YA Lit (Preparation)

How should my belief in how literature affects the reader guide my teaching and learning through literature with young adults?

I think this is an important question and I have secretly been wanting to answer it for a while. I believe that it is all about relationships that the reader has with the subject/theme, characters, and setting of the books.

I have a very simple philosophy about teaching. Dewey (learning imitating life) and Britton (reading across the curriculum) made the basic points that learning/school should relate to real life through it’s relevance to kids/students current experiences (start where the kids are) and self-projected future experiences. “Dewey came to the realization that learning was a process starting from uncertainty and growing from the impulse to resolve that uncertainly.” (from back cover of “The School and Society”.)

Readings for before 2-25-11:

•How Are Children Affected by the Books in Their Lives? Marc Aronson (eReserves)

•Beyond the Pale by Marc Aronson, Section Two and Section Four (our textbook)
Chapter 4 - What is Good Art, Now?
Chapter 5 - Of Camels and Needles' Eyes: Art and Young Readers
Chapter 10 - The Pursuit of Happiness: Does American History Matter?
Chapter 11 - Teenagers Don't Want to Read about Teen Angst, So Why Are So Many Angst-Filled Books Published?
Chapter 12 - What Is a YA Book, Anyway?

Prompts for before 2-25-11:

•What is young adult literature?

•On the literary to moralist continuum, where do I fall? How should my belief in how literature affects the reader guide my teaching and learning through literature with young adults?

•What should be the role of Young Adult Literature in the English Language Arts program?

"The Book Theif" by Marcus Zusak

This book has been suggested now by Dr. Crissman and a fellow student. It is in a similar vein as "The Diary of Anne Frank" about a young girl in Nazi Germany. But is has a unique point of view - the narrator is Death!

It makes history interesting and provides a unique take on a subject that has quite honestly been overdone. I say overdone despite it's importance to human history becuase there are other parts of history that could use a looking into but they are always being over-shadowed.

Asian-American Teen Lit from Goodreads

It seems that Amy Tan is not alone. A lot of books are aimed at the young adult Asian-American FEMALE reader.

List of YA Titles about the Asian-American Experience

Multi-cultural Digital Storytelling!

I ran across this multi-media story and thought it would be perfect for a book club!

Knite the Original Story on DeviantArt

Breaking Down and Building Up "Ship Breaker"

Ship Breaker is about family. It is about a society where your job is your family. You belong to a "crew" and take care of each other like brothers and sisters, and parents. Like any family they have good members and bad, except this family can change a lot faster and more irrevocably than a blood family.

I have been blessed that I have several "families" in my life. I have my mother's side of the family (I have only infrequent contact with my father's family). I have two "second moms" and their eldest daughters who have been my oldest friends. And, I have my small circle of friends (mostly from middle/high school) who are always there when I need them most. I would say these are my three "crews" and that I was blessed in the same way Nailer was that I found and was accepted by these amazing people. In the future, I hope to have a "crew" from my professional career, including professors, fellow teachering professionals, and possibly even students and parents.

Nailer went through a science fiction adventure but as Joseph Campbell would point out, we can all relate to the the archetypal journey of growth and discovery.

Week 5-2 The YA Controversy

What is better for the YA audience? A book with higher "literary quality", a more "popular" book, or a "readable" book?

Generational Differences in Working/Learning

Dr. Pope had her daughter Amy come into our class last semester to discuss how recognizing differences in what motivates Baby Boomers, Millenials, Gen X'ers, and Gen Y'ers can make a HUGE difference in how they work together. She also said that one person can aspects of more than one generation depending on how they grew up. I believe that these generational perspectives are just as important as the theory of Multiple Intelligences but have not gotten nearly enough attention and respect.

The student's perspective changes how she views school, what her goals are, and how she believes tshe can acheive her goals. That's pretty important information for teachers and other education professionals to take into account. It might provide part of the solution to the apparent "loss of interest" in school that is happening with our current group of students.

How Different Generations are Motivated to Work

Plan for Action Research Project

With help from my colleagues, I would like to get a group of 3 or 4 high school students willing to work with me to complete a "Short Story Workshop" over a matter of 3-4 weeks with twice a week check-ins. We would communicate through email and blogging (unless another method like IM or SecondLife was agreed upon).

During this workshop, I would like to discuss the form of the short story, creating one's own short stories, and the idea of scaffolded or unscaffolded learning.

I believe learning to write short stories has value for any student. Short stories are a lot of fun once the potential writer gets comfortable with writing and expectations. They are also a great form of self-expression with many fewer limits than the typical essay.

I would also like to discuss the teaching methold called "scaffolding". Scaffolding in teaching is when you build an informational and experiential support structure that students can use to climb to new academic heights. The principle is the same as a house painter that builds a lower level, then a middle level and finally the hightest level of scaffolding to help him reach his goal of painting the top area of the house. Academic teachers often use scaffolding to help students learn complicated information and new paradigms.

I want to relate scaffolded academic learning to learning out in the real world, like for a job. In school, teachers go out of their way to scaffold new academic projects for students. But, in a job, it is more likely to be here's a set of directions (complete or not) and get me the product by such and such time. Thinking about scaffolding is slight shift in perspective and strategy for students that may help them recognize and succeed in both academia and the real world.

A WebQuest format for the student directions/teacher view of project would be a great start!

Bookcast3: Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

Brand NEW bookcast HERE!

Week 4-3 Literature as a Performing Art

The main argument that I offer for "slowing down" and savoring a book is the different material and experience offered by a book or other literature. Movies and TV offer 30-minute to maybe 2-hour long story arcs that have to be wrapped up quickly and are usually heavy on the solving the problem or taking action and light on the reflection (the two parts of a story mentioned by Ira Glass).

Also, the moving screen is designed to catch a wide variety of people with as little story background as possible while literature has some series that have hundreds or thousands of pages of worthy and interesting background.

My main reason for loving literature and choosing to spend time reading books over movies is the availability of a wide variety and numerous books by my favorite authors. A book is relatively inexpensive to produce and the typical author averages one book every year or two. You can choose to follow one author and have many more hours of enjoyment than a movie that costs millions and is over in two hours. Also even if you like a particular director or movie star, you cannot predict the quality of the movie because there are so many factors involved. With a book, rarely does an author throw out a book that is a significant disapointment, if you enjoyed their other books.

One final reason for choosing to slow down and read books is that books (and other literature) can explore ideas in depth and in ways that other formats cannot.

Students should be exposed to these possibilities in a firm but supportive way before they are allowed to write literature off as "old fasioned".

Happy Ground Hog Day!

After all this winter weather in the U. S., we get to look forward to an early spring!

The famous varmint himself!

Bookcast2: Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

New and improved bookcast coming soon!

YA Literature as a Genre

What can young adults (or anyone for that matter) learn from YA literature? It's hard to pin down YA Literature as a genre other than that the author's target audience is middle school to high school age kids. But, then you have phenomenon like Harry Potter and the Twilight series where adults are drawn as well.

I believe the type of journey that the main character(s) take make a YA book different than mainstream fiction. Mainstream fiction is about adults who know who they are, start from a place of stability, and move into whatever problem or adventure as a separate space from their usual lives. Whereas, YA books often start with the main character in a place of complete change either internal or external where the goal is to find their identity and their sense of belonging and solving an external problem is secondary.

Ira Glass boils down storytelling into two equally importan parts: the Anecdote and the Moment of Reflection. The power of the Anecdote is in its momentum where you feel like you're on a train and moving toward a destination (at 2m12s in video). And along the way you must constantly be posing questions and answering questions aka the bait or the hook of the story.

Ira Glass on the Art of Storytelling

Bookcast1: White Cat by Holly Black

ECI 521 Bookcast Gallery

New and improved bookcast coming soon!

Week 2-2 What is Literary Quality?

According to ALA's Printz Award Criteria, QUALITY goes beyond audience size, popularity, message, and controversy. They call the main criteria LITERARY EXCELLANCE. The literary devices that they focus on for the award include: story, voice, style, setting, accuracy, characters, theme, illustration, and book design.

For me it boils down to that "je-ne-sais-quoi" that makes a book unforgettable and touches something human deep down in each of us: a book or other literary piece that makes us think about the world and our own lives in a new or deeper way.

White Cat by Holly Black

I chose this book before I realized that this is the same author who wrote the Spiderwick Chronicles. (I have only seen the movie.) I was pleasantly surprised. She also received editing/revision help from Scott Westerfield who wrote Uglies, which is another YA series that I really enjoyed.

She even has a North Carolina connection with the annual Sycamore Hill workshop, often held in Raleigh. My all time favorite NC writer, Orson Scott Card attended several of the workshops, as did Allen Wold, who is a famous Science Fiction writing mentor, both of which I have had the honor of meeting over the years. I also saw Jack McDevitt's name. Steve Berman also helped her with the book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycamore_Hill_Writer

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/sychillattendees.htm

All this from just the Acknowledgements page! I really feel like I am a part of this world and want to help others enjoy it, too!

My Poems

During a previous class we wrote several poems. There is one that I feel is very relevant to this class and I added a link.

http://alearningengagement.weebly.com/the-writer-and-the-teacher.html

Week 1-7 Funds of Knowledge Inventory (pre-FOKI)

I feel that I have an incredible foundation for being a Middle School English/Language Arts teacher. I also believe that I will make a great teacher in general. I have a love of reading and writing (if you will excuse the shaky punctuation skills). I also see how the foundation of being literate affects the future of a student's life. I am still adding to my teaching pedagogy but have favorites like John Dewey and writing favorites like Don Murray. As for the social aspects of being a teacher, I feel that I can relate to students better than the average first year teacher. I want to talk to them on a level that is not too high for them to relate to but also that challenges them to use their own experiences to boost their academic achievements. My technology skills are on the mid- to low-level compared to a Net-Gen like my future students and I could use some skill boosts, especially since technology has become so pervasive in our lives and yet educators seem to be behind the curve. I want to learn what technology tools are out there for teachers and how they are being integrated into educational settings.

The reason I chose Sidney Sheldon’s “If Tomorrow Comes” as my Journey Book was my visceral reaction to the character’s plight. It was the first time that I felt that I could relate to the characters in the books that I read. It may have been the first time I read a book that had a strong female character that succeeded in obtaining her goals. I love reading all of Sidney Sheldon’s books. I believe that all the books I read before only had male leads and did not relate to real-world skills and events that even as far-fetched as those in Sheldon’s fiction stories could happen.

Professional Self
I have never been a teacher before, but I have been a student almost my whole life, starting in pre-school and before. My mother is a teacher and I think she liked to test her lesson plans on me. I have been through several careers and always felt the pull of teaching but never had the courage to move on it. I am in the MAT program so that I can be the best teacher possible. I believe NCSU has a strong program, even if it is somewhat new. I have learned pedgogy, teaching methods, and the use of technology in my classes and feel very well prepared for the next step of student teaching.

Professional Self Goals
I look forward to being able to apply what I have learned in the MAT program as well as my own personal experiences to teaching in a real classroom.

Literate Self
I read a wide variety of books, both fiction and non-fiction. I have favorite genres like Urban Fantasy and most Science Fiction. But, I also try to read the classics like C.S. Lewis and other ELA cannon books.

Literate Self Goals
Now that I am going to be a middle school teacher I am focusing more on YA books like Rick Riordan and others. I hope to be able to relate to a wide variety of students and their literate interests.

Virtual Self
I am a BIG online gamer, so am very familiar with using an avatar. Second Life is more complicated than what I'm used to but I am very comfortable with the concept. I have many accounts on social and genre websites including FaceBook, Goodreads, DeviantArt and LiveJournal.

Virtual Self Goals
My goals are to use my comfort with technology to connect with the Net Gen students and other teachers.

Through writing this essay I feel that I have found weaknesses and strengths that I did not see before. I hope to work on my technology skills as well as the additional weaknesses and am proud to see the strengths that I already have.

Book Journeys

Book journeys start with the desire and ability to read. Finding the right book to read is often the first hurdle.