You have now finished reading your literature circle novel. After discussing the book with your group, share your final impressions of the book.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Johnny Got His Gun
You have now finished reading your literature circle novel. After discussing the book with your group, share your final impressions of the book.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
Touching Spirit Bear
You have now finished reading your literature circle novel. After discussing the book with your group, share your final impressions of the book.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
Storm Warriors
You have now finished reading your literature circle novel. After discussing the book with your group, share your final impressions of the book.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
Monster
You have now finished reading your literature circle novel. After discussing the book with your group, share your final impressions of the book.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
A Lesson Before Dying
You have now finished reading your literature circle novel. After discussing the book with your group, share your final impressions of the book.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
Fever, 1793
You have now finished reading your literature circle novel. After discussing the book with your group, share your final impressions of the book.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
Speak
You have now finished reading your literature circle novel. After discussing the book with your group, share your final impressions of the book.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
*In an earlier blog post you talked about a challenge in the novel, how was the challenge faced in your novel?
*Which character did you relate to the most? Why?
* What did you learn from the book?
Using the iTouches, answer all of the above questions in complete sentences.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Johnny Got His Gun
You have now completed your first literature circle and read 1/3 of the book. What challenges have you read about so far? What challenges or conflicts do you predict will happen? How do you think the character/s will react to the challenge?
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
So B. It
You have now completed your first literature circle and read 1/3 of the book. What challenges have you read about so far? What challenges or conflicts do you predict will happen? How do you think the character/s will react to the challenge?
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
Speak
You have now completed your first literature circle and read 1/3 of the book. What challenges have you read about so far? What challenges or conflicts do you predict will happen? How do you think the character/s will react to the challenge?
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
Fever, 1793
You have now completed your first literature circle and read 1/3 of the book. What challenges have you read about so far? What challenges or conflicts do you predict will happen? How do you think the character/s will react to the challenge?
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
Touching Spirit Bear
You have now completed your first literature circle and read 1/3 of the book. What challenges have you read about so far? What challenges or conflicts do you predict will happen? How do you think the character/s will react to the challenge?
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
Monster
You have now completed your first literature circle and read 1/3 of the book. What challenges have you read about so far? What challenges or conflicts do you predict will happen? How do you think the character/s will react to the challenge?
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
A Lesson Before Dying
You have now completed your first literaure circle and read 1/3 of the book. What challenges have you read about so far? What challenges or conflicts do you predict will happen? How do you think the character/s will react to the challenge?
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
Storm Warriors
You have now completed your first literature circle and read 1/3 of the book. What challenges have you read about so far? What challenges or conflicts do you predict will happen? How do you think the character/s will react to the challenge?
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
Answer these questions and pose a question you have. You may respond to your classmates' posts as well.
When you post, be sure to use your first name, the first letter of your last name, and your class period (ie. John D. 3).
Monday, November 9, 2009
How to Choose the Right Book
In literature circles, you get to tell me what type of book you would like to read based on the eight choices I have given you. After watching the videos and reading the summaries and reviews, it will be up to you to decide which book you would like to spend your time reading. There are a few strategies to help you choose a book that is just right for you and will help you avoid the method of choosing a book based on its cover.
Read over the strategies below, then examine the books and rank order them according to which book you would MOST like to read (#1) and which book you would LEAST like to read (#8). If there are any books you have read before, please write that down as well. This is an opportunity to explore a book that you have never read before.
How to choose a JUST RIGHT book:
1. Look at the cover
2. Read the title and the author-have you read books by this author? Have you heard of this author? Does the title make you curious about the rest of the book?
3. Read the summary on the back-does it make you want to read more?
4. Flip through the book- Does the book have a lot of dialogue or description? What style of writing are you interested in? Does the topic or theme of the book interest you?
5. Flip to any page in the book
6. Use the 5 Finger Rule-count on your fingers how many words you don't know/mistakes you make as read just one page
Selecting a book that holds your interest and gives you something worth discussing with others is part of becoming a critical reader
You will now have time to look over each of the eight books and apply these strategies. You will then rank order them. Have fun reading!
Read over the strategies below, then examine the books and rank order them according to which book you would MOST like to read (#1) and which book you would LEAST like to read (#8). If there are any books you have read before, please write that down as well. This is an opportunity to explore a book that you have never read before.
How to choose a JUST RIGHT book:
1. Look at the cover
2. Read the title and the author-have you read books by this author? Have you heard of this author? Does the title make you curious about the rest of the book?
3. Read the summary on the back-does it make you want to read more?
4. Flip through the book- Does the book have a lot of dialogue or description? What style of writing are you interested in? Does the topic or theme of the book interest you?
5. Flip to any page in the book
6. Use the 5 Finger Rule-count on your fingers how many words you don't know/mistakes you make as read just one page
- 0-1 mistakes- independent (easy) level
- 2-3 mistakes- instructional (just right) level
- 4 or more mistakes- frustration (hard) level
Selecting a book that holds your interest and gives you something worth discussing with others is part of becoming a critical reader
You will now have time to look over each of the eight books and apply these strategies. You will then rank order them. Have fun reading!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Book Talks
Letters from a Slave Girl by Mary E. LyonsHarriet Jacobs was born enslaved in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1813.
Grade 5-9-- Based on Harriet Jacobs's own autobiography, these so-called letters, written to lost relatives and friends, provide a microscopic look at what slavery meant for a young black female in the mid 1800s. The hope of freedom opens Harriet's story, as a dying mistress pledges to set the young slave free in her will. But broken promises abound in this slim volume. Harriet endures many hardships at the hands of her new owners and more struggles when she flees. Lost loves, sickness, motherly concerns for her two children and gentle observations on herself and those around her are combined with heavier comments on her slave condition. Thus, each letter pulsates with a rich vitality. Readers will be fascinated with this opportunity to experience the day-to-day life of a girl caught up in the bonds of slavery. --Amy Nunley, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, OH Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen
Video 2
Cole Matthews is angry. Angry, defiant, smug--in short, a bully. His anger has taken him too far this time, though. After beating up a ninth-grade classmate to the point of brain damage, Cole is facing a prison sentence. But then a Tlingit Indian parole officer named Garvey enters his life, offering an alternative called Circle Justice, based on Native American traditions, in which victim, offender, and community all work together to find a healing solution. Privately, Cole sneers at the concept, but he's no fool--if it gets him out of prison, he'll do anything. But what he doesn't know is a one-year banishment on a remote Alaskan island may be more difficult than he could ever imagine. Does he survive the year and what happens when he is faced with Spirit Bear, will he survive?
Storm Warriors by Elisa Carbone
The year is 1895 and young Nathan Williams wants nothing more than to be a "storm warrior," one of the brave men of the U.S. Lifesaving Service on Pea Island, off the North Carolina shore. Again and again, Nathan has helped the team rescue frightened sailors from floundering ships during the winter storm season. But Nathan's father is a fisherman, and he expects Nathan to be the same. After all, Pea Island is the single station open to African American surfmen, and the precious few jobs are passed from father to son. Still, Nathan is coached in lifesaving skills by the Pea Island crew and dares to hope that one day he may share in their ranks. But after helping with a particularly difficult rescue, Nathan is forced to face the truth: "In that moment I knew, without a shred of doubt, that I did not have the courage to risk my life that way." Will Nathan become a storm warrior? Will he choose another path?
So B. It by Sarah Weeks
"You couldn't really tell about Mama's brain just from looking at her, but it was obvious as soon as she spoke. She had a high voice, like a little girl's, and she only knew 23 words. I know this for a fact, because we kept a list of the things Mama said tacked to the inside of the kitchen cabinet. Most of the words were common ones, like good and more and hot, but there was one word only my mother said: soof."
Although she lives an unconventional lifestyle with her mentally disabled mother and their doting neighbour, Bernadette, Heidi has a lucky streak that has a way of pointing her in the right direction. When a mysterious word in her mother's vocabulary begins to haunt her, Heidi's thirst for the truth leads her on a cross–country journey in search of the secrets of her past.
Fever, 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson On the heels of her acclaimed contemporary teen novel Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson surprises her fans with a riveting and well-researched historical fiction. Fever 1793 is based on an actual epidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia that wiped out 5,000 people--or 10 percent of the city's population--in three months. At the close of the 18th century, Philadelphia was the bustling capital of the United States, with Washington and Jefferson in residence. During the hot mosquito-infested summer of 1793, the dreaded yellow fever spread like wildfire, killing people overnight. Like specters from the Middle Ages, gravediggers drew carts through the streets crying "Bring out your dead!" The rich fled to the country, abandoning the city to looters, forsaken corpses, and frightened survivors.
In the foreground of this story is 16-year-old Mattie Cook, whose mother and grandfather own a popular coffee house on High Street. Mattie's comfortable and interesting life is shattered by the epidemic, as her mother is felled and the girl and her grandfather must flee for their lives. Later, after much hardship and terror, they return to the deserted town to find their former cook, a freed slave, working with the African Free Society, an actual group who undertook to visit and assist the sick and saved many lives. As first frost arrives and the epidemic ends, Mattie's sufferings have changed her from a willful child to a strong, capable young woman able to manage her family's business on her own. (Ages 12 and older) --Patty Campbell
Monster by Walter Dean Myers"Monster" is what the prosecutor called 16-year-old Steve Harmon for his supposed role in the fatal shooting of a convenience-store owner. But was Steve really the lookout who gave the "all clear" to the murderer, or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time? In this innovative novel by Walter Dean Myers, the reader becomes both juror and witness during the trial of Steve's life. To calm his nerves as he sits in the courtroom, aspiring filmmaker Steve chronicles the proceedings in movie script format. Interspersed throughout his screenplay are journal writings that provide insight into Steve's life before the murder and his feelings about being held in prison during the trial. "They take away your shoelaces and your belt so you can't kill yourself no matter how bad it is. I guess making you live is part of the punishment."
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines-Challenge level bookIn a small Cajun community in 1940s Louisiana, a young black man is about to go to the electric chair for murder. A white shopkeeper had died during a robbery gone bad; though the young man on trial had not been armed and had not pulled the trigger, in that time and place, there could be no doubt of the verdict or the penalty.
"I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be..." So begins Grant Wiggins, the narrator of Ernest J. Gaines's powerful exploration of race, injustice, and resistance, A Lesson Before Dying. If young Jefferson, the accused, is confined by the law to an iron-barred cell, Grant Wiggins is no less a prisoner of social convention. University educated, Grant has returned to the tiny plantation town of his youth, where the only job available to him is teaching in the small plantation church school. More than 75 years after the close of the Civil War, antebellum attitudes still prevail: African Americans go to the kitchen door when visiting whites and the two races are rigidly separated by custom and by law. Grant, trapped in a career he doesn't enjoy, eaten up by resentment at his station in life, and angered by the injustice he sees all around him, dreams of taking his girlfriend Vivian and leaving Louisiana forever. But when Jefferson is convicted and sentenced to die, his grandmother, Miss Emma, begs Grant for one last favor: to teach her grandson to die like a man.
As Grant struggles to impart a sense of pride to Jefferson before he must face his death, he learns an important lesson as well: heroism is not always expressed through action--sometimes the simple act of resisting the inevitable is enough. Populated by strong, unforgettable characters, Ernest J. Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying offers a lesson for a lifetime.
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Since the beginning of the school year, high school freshman Melinda has found that it's been getting harder and harder for her to speak out loud: "My throat is always sore, my lips raw.... Every time I try to talk to my parents or a teacher, I sputter or freeze.... It's like I have some kind of spastic laryngitis." What could have caused Melinda to suddenly fall mute? Could it be due to the fact that no one at school is speaking to her because she called the cops and got everyone busted at the seniors' big end-of-summer party? Or maybe it's because her parents' only form of communication is Post-It notes written on their way out the door to their nine-to-whenever jobs. While Melinda is bothered by these things, deep down she knows the real reason why she's been struck mute...
Laurie Halse Anderson's first novel is a stunning and sympathetic tribute to the teenage outcast. After reading Speak, it will be hard for any teen to look at the class scapegoat again without a measure of compassion and understanding for that person--who may be screaming beneath the silence. (Ages 13 and older) --Jennifer Hubert
-Summaries and reviews from Amazon.com
2nd Quarter Literature Circles
This quarter we will be studying language arts with text and writing that centers around the theme of challenges and conflicts. We will be working on a cross-curricular literature circle that will incorporate both language arts and social studies. In language arts we will analyze literary elements within each novel and apply reading comprehension strategies to our student led literature discussions. In social studies the history of the texts will be examined and the events in the novel will be compared and contrasted with modern day events of the same nature. This should be a great learning experience for all and will allow the students to immerse themselves in understanding literature from multiple viewpoints.
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