Reading Blog List

I.                    Nonfiction/Informational

1.)     Anonymous. (1998). Go ask Alice. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks.

Boroson, M. (2005). 86 years: The legend of the Boston Red Sox. New York: Brown House Books.

2.)    Pelzer, D. (1995). A child called it. Deerfield Beach, Florida: Health Communications.

3.)    Boroson, M. (2005). 86 years: The legend of the Boston Red Sox. New York: Brown House Books.

II.                  Poetry

1.)    Silverstein, S. (1964). The giving tree. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.

2.)    Base, G. (1992). The sign of the seahorse. New York: Puffin.

3.)    Silverstein, S. (1974). Where the sidewalk ends. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.

4.)    Adshead, P.S. (1993). One odd old owl. Singapore: Discovery Toys, Inc.

5.)    Hesse, K. (2001). Witness. New York: Scholastic.

III.                Modern Fantasy

1.)    Du Prau, J. (2003). The City of Ember. New York: Random House.

2.)    Roth, V. (2012). Divergent. New York: Katherine Tegen Books. (ebook copy)

3.)    Riordan, R. (2008). The battle of the labyrinth. New York: Hyperion Books.

4.)    King-Smith, D. (1980). Pigs might fly. New York: Apple.

5.)    Young, E. (1992). Seven blind mice. New York: Scholastic.

IV.                Historical Fiction

1.)    Lasky, K. (1996). A journey to the new world: The diary of Remember Patience Whipple. New York: Scholastic.

2.)    Lowery, L. (2012). Across the wide and lonesome prairie: The diary of Hattie Campbell. New York: Scholastic.

3.)    Polacco, P. (1994). Pink and say. New York: Philomel Books.

V.                  Traditional

1.)    Chase, R. (1943). The jack tales. Massachusetts: Riverside Press.

2.)    Aardema, V., Dillon, L. & Dillon, D. (1975). Why mosquitoes buzz in people’s ears. New York: Puffin.

VI.                Realistic Fiction

1.)    Creech, S. (1994). Walk two moons. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.

2.)    Alexie, S. (2007). The absolutely true diary of a part time Indian. New York: Little Brown and Co.

3.)    Chbosky, S. (1999). The perks of being a wallflower. New York: Pocket Books.

4.)    Hopkins, E. (2007). Burned. New York: Simon Pulse.

5.)    Hopkins, E. (2004). Crank. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books.

6.)    Polacco. P. (1998). Thank you Mr. Falker. New York: Philomel Books.

VII.              Picture Books

1.)    Blume, J. (1974). Pain and the great one. New York: Dragonfly Books.

2.)    Allsburg, C.V. (1992). The widow’s broom. New York: Scholastic.

3.)    Allsburg, C.V. (1981). Jumanji. New York: Scholastic.

4.)    Scieszka, J. & Smith, L. (1989). The true story of the three little pigs. New York: Puffin Books.

5.)    Wiesner, D. (1991). Tuesday. New York: Clarion Books.

6.)    French, J. & Whately B. (2002). Diary of a wombat. Boston: Sandpiper

7.)    Wise-Brown, M. & Hurd, C. (1942). The runaway bunny. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.

 

 

Week 8 Field Experience Reflection

1. How many hours did you complete?
I completed the required five hours doing various activities for field experience.

2. In a short paragraph or bulleted list, how did you spend your time?
-90 minutes were spent interviewing the SLMS at my school of employment to learn about and browse the new materials and books purchased
-60 minutes were spent planning and designing a KTIP lesson
-60 minutes were spent getting to know my new students and implementing the KTIP lesson plan
-60 minutes were dedicated to the analysis and reflection of my teaching and student performance for the KTIP lesson
-30 minutes were allotted to share feedback with the students and to address any misconceptions

3. How did the experience help you to strengthen at least one Kentucky Teacher Standard? (be sure to name the standard)
The standard I personally felt I grew from would be 5.1 Candidates design the physical environment to optimize students use of traditional print, digital, and online resources in reading and writing instruction. After completing the interview with the SLMS, keeping a blog about my book selections, and utilizing ebooks and audio programs to develop book talks I now feel more comfortable incorporating both print and digital reading resources in my instruction.

4. Talk a little about one thing you learned because of this field experience.
I really appreciated the opportunity collaborating and learning from my school librarian. I feel like I got a sneak preview of the new materials and will be able to provide more differentiated resources to my collaborating teachers to help meet the diverse needs of our students.

Informational/ Biography Book Post

Pelzer, D. (1995). A child called it. Deerfield Beach, Florida: Health Communications.

I would like to begin this post with a challenge, I dare anyone out there to read this autobiographical novel without crying. Written as a chilling narrative, David Pelzer describes his childhood, if you could call it that, in which he lived every second in survival mode. David grew up in California and lived with his mother who starved, tortured, and maliciously abused both physically and emotionally until his was 12 years old before finally being rescued. David's mother beat him on a daily basis, she stabbed him, forced him to drink ammonia, and rarely fed him anything except for food scraps that even a dog wouldn't eat. David Pelzer's life is a frightening testament to the strength and willpower of human beings. It is truly a miracle he was able to survive. Pelzer retells his harrowing story as an informational chapter book, dividing the details of his life both before, during, and after the abuse he endured. From a middle school teaching standpoint, I cannot on good conscience recommend this book to my students as the material is just too graphic. I can see the implications of this lesson being taught at the high school level though. Although it is a very mature subject, this book could be used as part of teaching a social science  lesson in understanding and comparing appropriate human relationships. Also given the violent, shocking nature of this novel. I could see this lending some very strongly opinionated writing prompts.

Questions that could be asked include:
If you were in David's shoes, do you think you would have the courage to tell someone? Why or why not?
What do you think would have happened to David if his school had not intervened?
If you could ask David Pelzer a question about survival, what would it be?

Common Core Standards:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.6 Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness or beauty of the text.

Historical Fiction Book Talk

Lasky, K. (1996). A journey to a new world: The diary of Remember Patience Whipple. New York: Scholastic.

 Are we there yet? How much longer till we get there? Are we there yet?

       How many times have you asked your family this when going on a trip? Trust me, you're not the only one who's been asking. Those questions have been asked since the year 1620! Twelve year old Remember Patience Whipple, has been asking these questions for 65 days! That's exactly how long her voyage aboard the Mayflower to reach the new world. As she makes this famous pilgrimage, "Mem" records her thoughts and the events in her diary, from the moment they leave England, 2,950 miles later when they arrive at Cape Cod, to meeting and sharing with the Indians! If you would like to get an idea of what life might have been like for the earliest of Colonial settlers, the Pilgirms, then check out A Journey to a New World: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple. 

Realistic Fiction Book Talk

Creech, S. (1994). Walk two moons. New York: Harper Collins.

Sometimes in order to pique the interest of young readers, we as educators are called upon to pitch a book in similar fashion to the way an advertiser pitches their product. Follow the link below to listen a sample book trailer I created for Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. Enjoy!

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0zIuQT2K18A

Now that school is back in session, I'm sure you've been asked a million times, "What did you do over the summer?" If you're like thirteen year old  Salamanca, you would have gone on a cross country trip with your grandparents for a week. But this is no ordinary vacation. It's more a search and rescue for Salamanca's mother, who has been in Idaho since April. As they embark on their adventure, Salamanca is called upon to tell a story and we soon begin to hear about a mysterious girl named Phoebe Winterbottom, her missing mother, and a "potential lunatic". As the stories and events unfold, Salamanca learns a lot about herself and the importance of family. Will Salamanca be able to bring her mother back? What ever happens to Phoebe and the lunactic? Will Salamanca survive being stuck in a car with her grandparents for a week?
Read Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech to find out!

SLMS Interview

At our middle school, the library has gone under recent renovations in preparations to make more resources available to our staff. I asked our school librarian about some of the new additions our library would be receiving. The two most interesting additions include a reading resource room organized by Fountas and Pinnell reading levels and ladder texts from National Geographic. We have spent the past school year targeting fluency of all readers who are below grade level with the Fountas and Pinnell Assessment Kits. After administering the fluency and comprehension tests, the students’ results are then given a letter label from A-Z. For example, an incoming 6^th grader who is on grade level in reading would be equivalent to a level U in Fountas and Pinnell. The reading resource room is a collection a book sets, each containing five copies of the same book which would be great to use for literature circles. Our librarian and her assistant have bagged all the book sets and labeled them with a corresponding Fountas and Pinnell level and Lexile level. These kits will be great to use for differentiated reading groups in a classroom.

                The reading resource room also contains a selection of picture books and trade books that can be used for read a-louds or as mentor texts. These books are shelved and organized by content area, making it easier for math, science, and social studies teachers to incorporate reading into their classrooms. This will be helpful for content specific teachers who may have been unsure of how to incorporate reading strategies into the classroom.

The Ladder series from National Geographic is going to be a great resource for address the Informational Text strand of the Common Core Standards. This series takes the same content, and writes four different levels of text. The texts are all bound the same way and include the same pictures and graphics, but the words selected are now adaptable to the individual reader. I think this will be a great resource for my special education students, now they can access the same text at their level without feeling singled out. The Ladder books can be used across multiple content areas, especially in the science classroom.

Aside from the resources we already have, I think these new additions will be a great asset to our teachers. I look forward to using them!

Poetry Book Reflection: The Sign of the Seahorse

Base, G. (1992). The sign of the seahorse. New York: Puffin

One of my favorite books as a child to read was Animalia by Graeme Base. Filled with whimsical alliterations and vivid illustrations about animals, I simply could not get enough of it. I can remember checking out several times at the local library as a child, and I now have my own copy in my classroom. It is because of Animalia that I chose to seek out another book by Graeme Base to serve as my poetry book reflection. I came across another colorful, animal filled story with The Sign of the Seahorse. Right away I was intrigued by the illustrations of large, brightly colored seascapes with multiple fish personified to dress and behave in very human-like ways. In this book, we find it to be a narrative poem, it tells the story of a soldier crab and a pearl trout who fall in love, but their love and very existence is threatened by a greedy groper fish who is poisoning their coral reef home. It's up to the hero soldier crab to put a stop to him in order to save his home and true love  As I began reading, I fell right in sync with its slow rhythm. The poem is actually quite long and each line in the stanza is long and filled with descriptive, multisyllabic words that almost paint a picture in your mind as well as the illustrations. The following is a sample stanza that describes the son of the herione pearl trout in the poem I feel most middle school students could find humorous and could even relate:

"Despite the shock of spiky hair and earrings in his snout,
Young Finneus was really just your normal teenage Trout.
The Catfish Gang looked tough and mean- no manners, no respect.
But deep inside they meant no harm and dressed up for effect."

The same AABB rhyme scheme is used throughout the entire poem. The poem itself is actually quite long, and Grame Base himself chose to publish the book into two acts. When using this in the classroom, I could see this story being spread out of the course of several lessons. I think it would be a good idea to start out this book as a whole group read aloud. Then in the subsequent lessons, you might break the students into pairs and give them each a stanza or two to dissect and even illstrate. Some of the big questions you could ask would include: What word or words indicate the rhyme scheme? What is the meaning of this stanza? How does this stanza contribute to development of the story?

I found this to be a longer, but entertaining picture book to read. I think students would really enjoy looking at the illustrations and would enjoy listening to rhythm of this poem.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.7.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of rhymes and other repetitions of sounds (e.g., alliteration) on a specific verse or stanza of a poem or section of a story or drama.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.7.5 Analyze how a drama’s or poem’s form or structure (e.g., soliloquy, sonnet) contributes to its meaning