Session 8: Historical Fiction and Preparing for Mid-term

Hello everyone,

For session 8 we'll be looking at the genre of historical fiction and
preparing for the mid-term. In recognition of the fact that many of you have mid-terms this week and will be traveling over spring break, I'm cutting down the assignment a bit.

To prepare for class, please:

• Read Chapter 8 in C & G on historical fiction. Focus on the definition of the genre and the types of criteria you would use to evaluate historical fiction.
• Bring a hard copy of the McLeod article to class. (You'll find it on Angel.) We'll read and discuss it together.

• If you were a facilitator or did artistic response for Voices, remember that you have a second paper to write and submit before next session.
  

Stay safe and enjoy spring break!

Contraversy In Contemporary Fiction

I was just reflecting back on today's class, and was thinking about the Contemporary Fiction quotes we discussed. In my group, we talked about the challenges and the controversies associated with contemporary realistic fiction. I kept thinking back to it, and didn't get to say my opinion on the issue during class. For me, controversy stems from parents lack of ability to teach their children about important issues. For many children books serve as a learning tool, and parents must use these tools as a way to teach their children about the real world, rather than arguing over its' importance for children to read. Rather than hiding, and denying such a book exists, I believe it is up to the parents to take the serious issues found in Contemporary realistic fiction books and teach it to their children.

Limerick challenge

With her husband Valerie did eat
At a restaurant on Hagadorn street
Maybe it was fate
They agreed that a date
Without poetry is incomplete!

There once was a teacher named Walker
She knew she was a bit of a talker
She buttoned her lips
But made lots of slips
Maybe the class should clock her!

There are reasons to depart from the rhyme scheme...

On Thursday Val strolled into class
Hopped up on her stool bold as brass.
But the chair was on wheels
She let out a squeal
And almost fell on her rear.

So,

The structure of limericks was tough
Our class results a little bit rough
Now I hope all is clear
So leave your limericks here
In the comments, show us your stuff!

Christensen reading: "Unlearning the myths..."

We didn't have time in class to do justice to the question of what is gained and lost when one reads traditional folklore vs innovations ("fakelore").

In particular, I'm curious to hear people's responses to the Christensen article. What do people think? Does mass media create and maintain stereotypes? If so, what should be our response? What questions or dilemmas does the article raise for you?

Posted slides

Hi everyone,

I just went through and posted some slides from previous session. I try to do this right after class, but sometimes I forget! If you ever want them, and I haven't forgotten them, drop me a reminder email. Sorry if I inconvenienced anyone!

Donations for Nicaragua!

Hey everyone,

I'm studying abroad over spring break in Nicaragua. Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, so if your feel like being in a giving mood I'd be glad to accept donations in class on Monday. If you're interested, bring any new or slightly used MSU swag, anything from pencils to t-shits. Everything is much appreciated!

Thanks a ton,
Megan Schneider

Labels

This is a fake post to demonstrate something about labels!

Starbucks is reaching out to the kids!

I completely forgot to post this and it has been sitting on my computer but I still thought that it would be a good thing to bring up to the class. All throughout January The Starbucks next to Barnes and Nobel had a children’s story time at 6:00 on Sundays. I thought this was so interesting because usually Starbucks is marketed to the “business person” who is in a hurry for work, or even college students since they have areas for us to study there. Now it seems as if they are trying to reach out to all ages by having a children’s story time. I’m not quite sure if this is still going on. If anyone happens to stop by there let me know. I just thought this was an interesting piece of information since we were looking at what is being marketed to children through out discussion of the Bookstore vs. the Library.

Session 7: Voices in the Park and Comtemporary Realistic Fiction

In next week's session we'll be having our second small group literature discussion!

• Read Voices in the Park. (I would suggest you read it several times. I usually do my first read "just for pleasure" and then do more careful reads.)
• If you don't know, check the list on Angel to see what letter you have been assigned. Then check the schedule to see what response role you will be taking on for the book.
  
• Refer to the syllabus for a description of your role and write a response. Those who are assigned artistic response need to create a response and write a paper. Those who are assigned intertextual response need to look for one or more other "texts" to bring to their reading of Voices...

• Read Chapter 7 (Contemporary Realistic Fiction): How is the genre defined? What criteria might we use to evaluate this genre? What might be points of controversy around the selection of these texts?
  
• Read Gillis (2002): What are multi-genre and multi-vocal texts? What do they offer us as readers? What do we need to be able to do to make sense of these texts?
  

• Submit your papers to the Angel dropbox by 6 pm the night BEFORE class meets. To clarify, you should upload your paper as an attachment. The attachment should be labeled according to the directions in the syllabus. Do NOT cut an paste your paper in the box!
  
• Bring a hard copy of your paper to class for reference and to give to your facilitator.

• Don't forget that you need to post or comment during the second 5 weeks of class!
  

Next week we'll share our responses in our small groups, look at some contemporary realistic fiction, and do an activity that will push how we think about multi-vocal genres.

Comment on this post with your questions as they occur to you! If you have a more particular question, please email me!

Self Defense for Women

I just wanted to let you all know about the opportunities on campus that are available for people who are interested in learning more about self defense. The group that I am part of focuses in on the issue of sexual assualt awareness/prevention/resources etc. There are two different ways that people who are interested can get involved.

There is a Self Defense Club on campus that all MSU students are free to join, for more info. go to either www.msu.edu/~sdclub or join the facebook group "Self Defense Club."

Another option for people who may not have the time to committ to a club is to request a two hour program, run by trained MSU students, for a group of friends, hall mates, or even a social group. These programs are free and available upon request, in order to schedule one contact Michelle Harkins at harkins9@imsports.msu.edu or by calling (517) 431-2661.

Special Someone Day

Last week we started talking about observing how the schools that we worked in celebrated Valentines Day. The k-5 elementary school that I observe decided to not call Thursday, February 14th, Valentines Day, but instead "Special Someone Day". The students were asked to plan a day of activities that they would want to share with their special someone they would invite to the classroom. That special someone could be a friend, parent, grandparent, whom ever they chose. One cool thing about Special Someone Day was that the kids connected all activities to show their special someone with what they were doing in class. For example, in science they were learning about how combining different substances create different things (like in cooking). So instead of everyone bringing food to the Special Someone Celebration, they made ice cream from scratch. I thought this whole idea was so cool because it stepped out of the normal valentines day, candy, valentines, who got what from whom aspect of this holiday. Special Someone Day focused on showing someone the students love or care about things that the students have been dedicating their time and efforts to.

Reading "Fancy Nancy"

A few nights ago, I babysat for a family and put the kids to bed. One of the little girls who is three years old was very excited for me to read her new story called Fancy Nancy before she went to bed. As I read her the story, I was fascinated at how intently she looked at each and every picture making comments and relating to Nancy. When we were finished I had to laugh because the picture book just fit her personality so perfectly. When her parents came home, I commented on how adorable the storybook was. Her mom said that they went to the bookstore when they were on vacation and she picked it out all by herself. She told me how she was so excited to go to the bookstore and how much she loves the book. I find it so refreshing that even today when there are so many video games, computer games, television shows, and so much more, that children still find so much excitement in getting a new book. I also found it interesting that she was thrilled to go and spend time at the bookstore while she was on vacation. The most interesting thing out of this experience was how the book so fit her personality. It is so cool that there are so many stories out there that kids can find that match their unique personalities so closely.

My Sister's Bookstore

This past weekend I went home and found out that my sister wants to open a bookstore. She graduated college with a degree in psychology, worked, got married, had children, and put her degree off for a while. Now she wants to put her degree back to use and start a bookstore dealing wth psychology. I mentioned to her about the bookstore Everybody Reads and the story that the owner shared with us. My sister also wants to offer books to people that can't always find books easily. She wants to have a bookstore geared towards children and parents with mental disorders and other mental health issues. She wants to create a place where parents and children dealing with these issues can find information, resources, and stories like theirs. I think that it is a great idea! Now that I am in this class I am learning what people buy, how to organize a store into sections, and what resources would be helpful for customers. Because of the library/bookstore assignment, I am able to help my sister design this store and give advice. She is still thinking about a store name though, any ideas?

What constitutes a children's book?

Hey guys! For the first reading response my position is the Intertextual Response, so I thought it would be interesting to research information on Maurice Sendak and his books subsequent to Where The Wild Things Are. As I began to dig deeper and deeper into his past, the articles revealed astonishing clues to the meaning behind his wonderful pictures and text. Thus, I began to question the motives behind all children's literature.
From genre to genre, children's literature can be categorized an endless amount of ways. As a future teacher, however, I feel it is imperative to focus on the books that are placed in the children's section, when indeed they should not be. The beauty of children's literature, from the elaborate artwork to the corky stories, is allowing kids to elaborate on their own thoughts and infinite imaginations. Books such as The Giving Tree--one of my favorites as a kid--have underlying meanings aimed for a mature mind. Although I feel it is important to expose kids to figurative pieces of literature, I think it is overlooked as adults. Now I find myself reading into everything I ever read as a child! I would never want to doubt the mind of a child but I think it would be interesting to get their perspectives to compare and contrast.
I don't know if anyone has any experience with children in this field but let me know what you think!

Session 6: Folklore and Poetry

Don't forget that the facilitator and artistic response people from Where the Wild Things Are need to submit their second papers to the appropriate dropbox before session 6!

There's a lot of reading for next session because we'll be exploring two different genres: Folklore and Poetry.

Here are some questions to help you focus your reading:

• Folklore: C & G, Ch 5 and Christensen (on Angel)
• How is the genre defined? What makes folklore, folklore?
  
• What are the differences between folklore and "fakelore"? What might those differences matter?
• What sub-categories can we use to describe types of folklore?

• Poetry: C & G, Ch 4 and Apol/Harris (on Angel)

• How is the genre defined? How is it meant to be experienced? (Is this what we see in schools?)
• How might we evaluate poetry? How might conventional understandings of form, etc. help us? (Scare us? Excite us? We'll spend some time unpacking our own histories with poetry!!!)
  

• Why pair folklore and poetry? How are they similar? Different?
  

I've said this to each of the sections, but I want to reiterate: The quality of conversation in the class depends largely on you! Please come prepared, with copies of the readings! Preparing for class is part of your full participation in class!

Decline in Children's Reading

Hi everyone,

I found an interesting article that discusses the decline in children's reading, and how in an effort to reverse this, a National Ambassador for Young People's Literature was appointed.

"Scieszka will travel the nation speaking to parents, teachers, and the media, as well as attend events at book fairs, publishing houses, libraries and nonprofit centers.  But his main job as ambassador will be to engage the children..."

I'm not sure if this will actually be effective or not.  What do you guys think?  I've noticed this decline in reading, not only in young kids, but in myself as well.  Have you been reading a lot less because of distractions from other media forms that can educate us just as well as books?  What do YOU think should be done?

Here's the link if you are interested:  http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2008-01/2008-01-03-voa73.cfm?CFID=268937370&CFTOKEN=41537150

learn now to teach better in the future

Hey guys!

The East Lansing Public Library offers more than just the opportunity to check out books. They have a lot of great services, and you should really take advantage of them. We discussed in class about how reading should sometimes be just for fun. Well heres a chance to not only read a great book, but also gain a little something from it.

The East Lansing Public Library has an International Book Club. You get the opportunity to journey around the world by reading books about different cultures. There are also guest speakers, refreshments from the region, and more!!

This month they are reading the book: The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri.
They will be meeting on February 20th, from 7-8:30om at the library.

I think this is a great way to learn about other cultures, while enjoying yourself. I think the more knowledgeable we are about other cultures, the better we will be as teachers. It is important to be well informed about people outside yourself, in order to teach children to be more accepting of others. Do what you will be preaching! Be diverse in knowledge by learning about diversity.

The East Lansing Lioadbrary is located at 950 Abbot Road, in East Lansing. If you need even more information, call them at 517.351.2420.

High School Reading- Fallen Angels

As I was reading Where The Wild Things Are for our assignment in class I got to thinking...My role for this first assignment is Personal/Facilitator and in that I have to write the paper on emotional reactions I've had to the text. This is where all of my memories of childhood started flooding in! However, every time I'm asked to respond with my reactions to a book I automatically think back to junior year in high school honors english. We read the book Fallen Angels, and I'm not sure if any of you have read that book, but if you haven't I highly recommend it! It is one of my favorites. Not only is it a great read that teaches you a lot about the strength of friendship, but since I've read it, some things have happened and I now have stronger emotional ties to it because of who I read it with in that class. I think it's amazing how reading can create such powerful feelings in a person, and this class (te348) has really brought that to my attention even more. So I'm just curious, has anyone else in the class read Fallen Angels or do they have a favorite book that they always think back to?...

Books turned into movies

In class we barely touched on the fact the books are more commonly being turned into motion pictures. A most recent example would be the film "The Golden Compass", which was adapted from the novel written by Philip Pullman. I read the books before watching the film and found it to be rather dissappointing. I personally felt that the film was a bit crammed. As if the director tied to put to much into the film in a short amount of time. The scenes went by too fast without ever connecting into a fluent storyline. It may be that since I read the book before watching the film that i feel a little unsatisfied, but I wanted to get the perspective of others and see how everyone else feels about it. Whether it be The Golden Compass or some other book-to-movie adaptation.

Banned Books... You've probably read these!

On the first day of class, when we shared one book that was significant in our childhoods, I said that mine was “Superfudge” by Judy Bloom. A lot of people agreed that this was a significant book in their childhoods as well.
After the discussion last week regarding banned books, I decided to go online and read what some of the censored books are. Many books that I have read, and that I’m sure you have too, were on that list. One of these books was “Superfudge” by Judy Bloom. This was due to "profane, immoral and offensive" content.
I haven’t read this book in a long time, but I do not remember anything being “offensive”, “Immoral” or “profane”. Do you have any idea what this could be referring to?
You might also be interested in knowing some of the other books that were on that list. “Where the Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein was censored because it was “considered by opponents to undermine parental, school and religious authority”. “To Kill a Mockingbird”, “Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great” (also by Judy Blume), “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, “Of Mice and Men”, “Huckleberry Finn”, “Harriet the Spy” and many other seemingly harmless books were on that list. Harriet the spy was said to be “considered ‘dangerous’ because it ‘teaches children to lie, spy, back-talk and curse’”. I thought this was interesting to say the least.
What do you all think of this? I’m sure you’ve read some of these books. Are you surprised they are on this list? Check out this website for more info http://home.nvg.org/~aga/bulletin43.html.

Our Beloved (And Forgotten) Picture Books

So I was reading the blog and trying to come up with a way to participate in the conversation in the next two days. Maybe some of you are currently struggling with the same dilemma.

Well here's my idea:

Last week, in the Thursday section we didn't have time to discuss the picture books that we brought to class to share. I'd like to hear about the books other people planned on sharing and why they chose that book in particular, maybe with a link to the book on Amazon so we can see at least the cover art. I'd also love to hear about the books shared in the Monday session as well!

Please respond about your books in comments to this post. I'll start!

Graphic Novels--all books?

The article made a comment about how children were really the only readers who could truly appreciate graphic novels. In a way, I agree. Once you start seeing pictures with words, you almost rely on the words to tell the story for you. But a little kid's imagination can tell a completely different story. I work at a daycare, and the kids love "reading" books to me. Of course, they just make up the story; but I love to hear what they come up with. While they're "reading", they are basically just looking at the pictures and telling a story. So, in a way, it seems like picture books are graphic novels to kids before they can read. Agree or disagree?

Session 5: Where the Wild Things Are

In next week's session we'll be having our first small group literature discussion!

• Read Where the Wild Things Are. (I would suggest you read it several times. I usually do my first read "just for pleasure" and then do more careful reads.)
• If you don't know, check the list on Angel to see what letter you have been assigned. Then check the schedule to see what response role you will be taking on for the book.
  
• Refer to the syllabus for a description of your role and write a response. Those who are assigned artistic response need to create a response and write a paper. Those who are assigned intertextual response need to look for one or more other "texts" to bring to their reading of WtWTA.
  

• Submit your papers to the Angel dropbox by 6 pm the night BEFORE class meets. To clarify, you should upload your paper as an attachment. The attachment should be labeled according to the directions in the syllabus. Do NOT cut an paste your paper in the box!
  
• Bring a hard copy of your paper to class for reference and to give to your facilitator.

• Don't forget that you need to post or comment during the first 5 weeks of class!
  

Next week we'll share our responses in our small groups, debrief with the whole class, and watch a video that shows what literature circles might look like in the classroom.

Comment on this post with your questions as they occur to you! If you have a more particular question, please email me!

Oprah's Kids Reading List

I was looking online and I found Oprah’s Kids Reading List. You are able to change the age groups. After changing these groups you can go through a bunch of different books. Each time a new book comes up there is a little about the book next to it. I knew that she had a book club, but I did not know that she had one for children of all ages, as well. I found it very interesting to look at the different books she thought would be good for each group. This is the website if you want to check it out:

http://www.oprah.com/obc/kids/obc_kids_main.jhtml