EDRG 3344 - Expository/Persuasive

Hope everyone is having a good week. Well since my mgp is on literature mainly classic and comtempory literature, I decided to write my persuasive as a letter to a libraian requesting different types of books for the students and classroom. Im still having a little trouble figuring out what I want to do my expository on or how I want to do it. I was thinking that since it is for fifth grade I can do a poster on how to do readers theater, or since it is on the different types of literatures I was thinking about making a poster of a venn diagram to help students differentiate between classic and contemporary books.

EDRG 3321 - Author Study

Mick Harte Was Here

Author: Barbara Park

Ages: 8 - 12

I first discoved this book when my fifteen year old brother was in the fifth grade. He read it liked it and never stopped talking about it. He finally got me to read it and I could see why he liked it. This book actually deals with death as a theme. It follows young Pheobe as she deals with the death of here brother, and tell the story of his life to the readers. The readers goes on to learn that Mick died in a bike accident when he was twelve years old. The story takes place a year after his death. When I was reading this book I got into it and felt like I knew the characters. www.randomhouse.com/kids/junieb

Bridge to Terabithia

Author: Katherine Peterson

Ages: 9 - 12

This is another book I found and just wanted to menton a short thing about it. It is about a boy named Jess Aarons who becomes friends with Leslie Burke, a girl who is a new student at his school. Leslie soon opens Jess mind to imagination and soon they both create Terabithia. Terabitha is a land where Jess and Leslie reigh heigh and no one can ever defeat them. This place that Leslie helped to creat for Jess is what helps him when and unexpected tragedy occus.

This is also a book that deals with some aspects of death and how children cope with it.

www.Terabithia.com

Both of these are good books that I have seen in the classroom.

EDRG 3321 Wed. Night - Fiction

Fiction is definitely my favorite type of book to read, once I get into a book it is hard to get me out of it, sometimes Im at home and I'll start reading a book and before I know it I finished the whole thing. I had a hard time learning to read in school, but once I did learn it was hard for me to stop. I have way to many favorites to choose from but I'll try to pick some from one author, or narrow it down to a few authors for this blog.

Well first of all I love the book Little Women by Louis May Alcott. I was in love with the movie when I was younger and I always watched it with my mom. When I was in the seventh grade my mom brought me the complet unabriged book at a yardsale. I started reading in and fell completly in love with it. I loved the relationships all the characters had with each other. It is one of my all time favorite books, I have read it about two sometimes three times every year since I got the book.

Jane Austen! There is not much more I can say she is a great author and I love her books. She is one of my favorites and I have read all her books but Sense and Sensibility. My faveorites are Pride & Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. When I read her books I get so into the stories that I cant stop reading. I just love the way that she writes and the plot lines that she creates. Ive read Pride & Prejudice maybe four times and Northanger Abbey twice. Now Im gonna read Mansfield Park again.

Nicholas Sparks in another one of my favorite authors I have read all of his books. I love that her writes the romance story but he also write with many other aspects in his books. Though most of his books have a sad poin in the story none of his books are exactly the same. I cant really say that I have a favorite book of his because to me they are all great.

EDRG 3321 Wed. Night - Chapter 8

I really enjoyed reading this chapter and learning about fiction. I really liked how the textbook said that fiction provides a window into what makes human beings so Human. One of the things that I enjoyed reading about was the different types of fiction. These are contemporary realistic fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, and science fiction. Of these my favorites are contemporary realistic fiction, which is stories of animals and people that could actually exsist along with events that could actually happen in todays world or the recent past. I also enjoy reading some historical fiction which are stories about people and events that could actually happen, but the stories usually take place in the past.

Something that caught my attention was the two types of conflicts, internal and exteranl. Internal being a struggle within one's self where a person must make some decision or overcome pain; and external being a struggle with a force outside one's self. I think that these things are what help draw readers and keep them interested in fiction reading. I know that this is what kept me interested in many of the books I have read. I also think that this is what keeps children interested in reading. I know when I was younger and I had to read books in school I was more interested in them if the conflicts in the stories where some that I could relate to.

EDRG 3321 Wed. Night - Author Study

Number the Stars

Author: Lois Lowry

Age Range: 12 and up

This book focuses on ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen. Its the year 1943 and the girls lives are filled with school and food shortages, and the Nazis have begun marching through their town of Copenhagen. When the German Nazis begin their campaign to "relocate" all of the Jews of Denmark the Johansens take in Ellen and pretend that she is part of their family. Late one night the Nazis arrive at the Johansens home and Annemarie and Ellen must think quicky when the Nazis question why she isnt blond like her sisters.

I think that this is a great book to use in the fifth grade and middle school grades. It is a way that you can teach them about the Holocaust that they may understand better and relate to because the main character is around their age. I also found some interesting websites that may be helpful when using this book.

http://www.mce.k12tn.net/reading23/number_the_stars.htm

http://earthrenewal.org/Number%20the%20stars%20by%20Lois%20Lowery.htm

http://www.carolhurst.com/titles/numberthestars.html

Also this is the authors website that has a list of some of her other books.

http://loislowry.com/

EDRG 3321 Wed. Night - Chapter 7

This chapter explained how the word illustration means light upon or illuminate. I think that is exactly what picture books do. They not only tell the story, but they show the story. I think that this is great for students who may have trouble understanding the story or those who have trouble understanding some details of the story. Many times the pictures help children understand what they are reading.

Its interesting to learn how many details go into creating a picture book, and how all those details help bring picture books to life. Some of those details are color, shape, texture, and line. Of these shape is how and why intersecting lines create and depict a certian trait or shape, and color reflects the plot and moods of the characters. Texture is when the reader wants to reach out an touch the illustration, and the artist used a combination of shape, line, and color. Line is used to define what illustrators draw or paint. It shows movement, shape and texture and is also used to suggest emotion or moods. Illustrators also use line to show action, movement and other things. To me line is interesting in the way that drawing, painting or sketching a picture in a certian format can bring change to the meaning of the story. I also enjoyed learning about the different media that are used in picture books. Its interesting to know that all the details that go into art that hangs in museums also goes into creating great picture books.

EDRG 3344 - What is a narrative?

A narrative is a type of writing that is used to tell a story and can be anything from a book to a song. Narritive writing consist of beginning, middle and an end. It contains key elements such as plot, setting, characters, and usually conflict and resolution. A narrative is a story that is written in the constructive format. Some forms of poetry are books, poetry and songs. It is the process of telling a story and can be either fact or fiction. Narrative writing is a story or an account of a sequence of events in the specific order they happened. Narratives are usually told to serve a purpose by the author, and usually tell their opinion on a subject or some experience that they went through.

EDRG 3321 Wed. Night - Chapter 6

I missed class this day so I didnt really get to learn as much as when I hear the lecture. I never really thought about what traditional literature was or what it consisted of. I knew that it had something to do with differnt values and cultures but that was basically it. What I didnt know was that traditional literature consisted of many different fairy tales that have been around for years and years. The books states that it is crucial to have students read about different cultures, values, and beliefs and not just their own, so they will become aware of many differnt cultures instead of just knowing about their own.

EDRG 3321 Wed. Night - Author Study

I wasnt able to got to class last week so I dont really know what the lecture was on, but here is my author Profile for this week.

Ruby the Copycat

Author: Peggy Rathmann

Age Range: 4-9

This is one of my favorite books, my teacher Mrs. Esquivel read it to my class in fourth grade and I have loved it ever since. It is about a young girl named Ruby who moves to a new school and starts copying a classmate Angela. One day Angela comes to school with a red bow in her hair and later Ruby returns from lunch with a red bow in her hair. When Angela wears a tie-dye shirt and shoes Ruby comes back from lunch wearing the same thing. Every day of school Ruby comes back from lunch wearing the exact same thing Angela was wearing. Ruby even tries to copy a poem that Angela wrote. Angela gets mad at Ruby for trying to copy her and says she is going to tell the teacher, Miss Hart, and she also makes a mean comment about Ruby's hair. After school Miss Hart talks to Ruby and tells her that she doesn't always have to copy Angela, and she should try to be Ruby fist.

I think that this is a really good book to help yours students realize that they don't have to be like any other kids, and that they can just be themselves, and it would be useful for most elementary grades. This website www.peggyrathmann.com has information about Ruby the Copycat, and other books by Peggy Rathmann.

I also found some websites that different ways that you could use this book in the classroom.

http://teachers.net/lessons/post/3565.html

http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/texttalk/pdfs/Ruby_Lessonplan.pdf

EDRG 3344 - Narrative

This is only a rough draft so I don't think its that great ye and its not finished, but here is what I got so far.

Reading has never been one of my favorite past times. If I did read a book I always preferred to read one of the "easy" books that I thought would entertain me.Either that or I would just read any book that was cool at the moment, never trying anything new or different. The year I went to the fifth grade changed my opinion of reading and what it could do for me. This is the year that taught me to love reading and if I was willing to venture out of my comfort zone reading would open my eyes to old and new adventures.

My teacher in fifth grade was Mrs. Nelson. During the school year Mrs. Nelson taught us about classic and contemporary literature and some of their characteristics. Of course I found the contemporary literature to be more interesting than classic literature. I also thought that contemporary literature would be easier to understand and that it would be easier to relate to more modern stories. My friends and I also thought that it would just be boring to read any kind of classic literature.

When Mrs. Nelson told the class that were were going to start reading some books we all thought for sure that she would have us read contemporary literature. Imagine our surprise when she told us that she was going to have us read some classic literature instead. My classmates and I all thought she was crazy. How could she honestly expect us to read, enjoy, and understand classic literature. It seemed like something completely different from the way we were living. She told us that we would be reading a book by Mark Twain called The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and that it was about a boy named Thomas Sawyer and the mischief and adventures he gets into with his friend Huckleberry Finn. Even so, I still didn't think that I could relate to the story, sure it was about kids but it was set in a completely different time period than the one we were living in. How could I possibly relate to or understand the characters or anything that was happening in the story.

EDRG 3321 Wed. Night - Author Study

Mr. Peabody's Apples

Author: Madonna

Age Range: 4-8

Mr. Peabody's Apples is a book that shows how strong our words are and what can happen when you spread rumors. Mr. Peabody is a teacher and is also the coach of the boys baseball team during the summers. After the baseball games he walks home waving to everyone he sees, and on the way stops by a fruit stand and takes the shiniest apple and puts it in his bag before continuing home. One day one of his players sees him take and apple and assumes that he is stealing it. After another game the player follows Mr. Peabody home and watches him take another apple, now he is convinced that he is stealing the apples. Instead of confronting Mr. Peadody about it he starts telling people that the coach is a thief. Soon everyone in town is convinced that Mr. Peabody is a thief, no one waves to him anymore and at the next baseball game he finds himself alone on the field, not knowing what is wrong. Only on boy, Billy is brave enough to confront him. He tells him what the other player saw, how he told everyone else, so now they all think he is a thief. Mr. Peabody then finds the boy who spread the rumor and confronts him. As it turns out he pays for the apples in advance. The boy apogizes, but Mr. Peabody still has a lesson for him to learn. He has the boy get a pillow full of feathers and take it to the baseball field. When the boy does, Mr Peabody has him cut it open and dump all the feathers out. After the boy does this, he is told that he has to collect all the feathers. The boys works for along time but finds it impossible to collect all the feathers. Mr. Peabody tell him that is what happens when you spread rumors about someone, it is easy to tell and give information, but you can never take it back completly.

Though the suggested age range is 4 through 8, I think that this is a good book to use for elementary school students in the third throught the fifth grade. I also think that students this age will be able to relate to the book better than younger children. This is a time when students start spreading rumors about each other and I think it would be a good book to show them the damage it can cause, and once you say something you can never take it back completly. This book can be used to teach students about the power of words as well as honesty and not spreading rumors.

This is a website I found that list some discussion starters and activities you can do with the book. It also list some other books you can use in the classroom that has honesty as its theme.

http://www.scott.lib.mn.us/peabody.html

These are a few of the books the website list that also have honesty are a theme.

EDRG 3321 Wed. Night - Chapter 5

This class was really interesting, and I really enjoyed watching the videos that professor Picket showed us. I like poetry, but I really never had a strong understanding of it was not very good at writing poetry. When I was in school everyone said that poetry always had to rhyme and I think that is why I had some trouble with it. If figured my toughts and ideas didn't rhyme so why should poetry that I write always have to rhyme.

Something that I liked was the idea of doing poetry posters in the classroom, and I really liked the ones used as examples from the power point. I also liked the fact that we should let children write about what they know. I think that this is one of the best things to do, because they will be more familiar with what they are writing about than if you gave them an assigned topic. I know that having an assigned topic to write a poem on was always something that gave me trouble when I was in school.

Something else I liked was the playground chants, and the poetry hunts, slams and the poetry cafe. I like how professor Pickett gave examples of how you could do a poetry cafe in the classroom and I think it would be something I would like to try in my future classroom.