Final Reflection

I really enjoyed Reading and Responding for Children's Literature. I loved how laid back it was but I still got so much out of it. I experienced so many children's books that I would have never been able to read if I hadn't been obligated to read them, because it's so hard to read those books when you have tons of other school stuff to do...unless it is required. I really learned a lot. I really loved blogging about them and having the freedom to write our feelings, rather then having requirements. I know the other reading and responding class does Word documents and has to write about so many different things. I feel that by picking out books, sometimes at random, they aren't going to be good or worthy to use in your classroom, and some you just aren't able to say much about. I really think Jen's way of teaching the class was perfect and she cared about what we had to say. I would recommend this class to anyone because I got a lot of book ideas about my classroom. If you're passionate about a book, that there is a way to read it and incorporate it into the curriculum. There are also a ton of ideas online so you aren't thinking of ideas and books all by yourself. I learned that there is resources out there that support the teacher and that it is important to make use of them. I liked all the projects that we did. I think that they were helpful and useful and I really liked how the presentations were so informal and we shared at our tables. I feel that I learned more and it was easier to talk about what I learned and researched. I can't think of any one thing that I would change out the teaching or set up of the class. I enjoyed going to it every week and I really appreciated how Jen really cared about what we had to say and really respected our opinions and our busy lives as students.

Dolphins At Daybreak (Magic Tree House Series #9)-By: Mary Pope Osborne; Illustrated By: Salvatore Murdocca

I read this novel with my child study little boy. He loves the series and I had never read it before but see all the books in the Scholastic book orders. It was all that he could talk about for the first few weeks of child study and then I finally brought a book in and he got so excited. We read it. It was a quick, easy read but it was action packed. The chapters were cliff hangers and it was realistic at least to the second grader. What he really likes about the book is that the characters stay consistent through all the books and there are TONS of them and they all start the same way for the most part, so it is actually a series, rather than the Star Wars books that have a wide variety of different authors and different things going on that don't really connect. There is a lot of dialogue and easy for kids to get in to. I would definitely read them as a read a loud or have them as free read books. It was about an 80 or 90 page novel, so it was easy to get through and the little boy reads pretty well and gets through them pretty fast if he sticks with it. By giving kids fun books like this to read I think it is easy for them to get wrapped up in and relate it to interests in there like and making connecting. I know a big thing we talk about in block A about reading for meaning and making connections is a big part of that. I think it is awesome when children are making connects to text and they are enjoying it, rather then being forced to read and forced to make connections or asked low level comprehension questions guided by the teacher.

And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street-By:Dr. Seuss

This Dr. Seuss book build off of each page. A boy walks to school everyday and his imagination takes him away. He notices a horse and a wagon on his way to school and each page more things are added, so at the end it's pretty much a parade on Mulberry Street. I have never read this book before either but it wasn't one of my favorites. The book was taken over by a lot of text and there wasn't many detailed illustrations. I like when there are a lot of details in his books because they are so abstract that it's cool to see whats in his imagination. There wasn't really a moral or lesson that was trying to be taught but showing how children's imagination run wild and how parents or adults just don't understand what is going on in kids heads. I picked two Dr. Seuss books for the poetry collection because I haven't read any other Dr. Seuss books this semester and all his books are so poetic or the first thing I think of when I think of a poem. In my classroom I want a whole collection of Dr. Seuss books because I think they are up for so much interpretation and kids just love them. It's amazing that 30 or 40 years after they were published they are still as popular as they were many years ago and still used a lot in classrooms. This wasn't my favorite Dr. Seuss book but I'm definitely not going to stop reading his books. It was still a good book but not compared to his others in his collection.

Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!-By: Dr. Seuss; With Help From: Jack Prelutsky & Lane Smith

I really enjoy Dr. Seuss books and I just became familiar with this book early this year when my science methods teacher mentioned it in one of his lectures during class. I finally just got around to reading it. This was a book that was published in 1998, but Dr. Seuss died in 1991. It was good that that had found sitting in a drawer or something. The words were done, but the illustrations weren't, So Jack and Lane decided to help get it published. I really love the books because they are so abstract by using made up words or things but the point of the story is so strong and important. He really has a message that he wants to send out to the people reading the books that he does in a fun, captivating way. This book really applies to us. It is about students attending Diffendoofer School and talking about how great their school is and all the teachers. No detail about the school is left out and it is so positive. The narrator just loves it. But than they have to take an assessment "much take a special test to see who's learning such and such-to see which school's the best." And everyone freaks out because because if the school doesn't do well they will go to flobbertown where everyone does everything the same. It really reminded me a lot of where we are now in education and Dr. Seuss had to have written this in the late 1980's. It's sad still so much is the same. Moral of the story is that everyone passes and they keep the school. The pictures were very fun and colorful and creatures that you see in Dr. Seuss books but with more bright, bold colors. It was a very fun read and I think that it would be a great book to read to students when it comes time to take a standardize test to help them understand what the purpose is and take some stress out of it.

The Adventures of Simple Simon-By: Chris Conover

This book was very abstract and so were the illustrations. It's about the adventures of this pumpkin Simon and he just ends up failing and getting hurt over everything he does. It's a book written as a poem but it incorporates nursery rhymes. The illustrations are very detailed. There is a side bar and an illustration on the opposite page, showing what is happening in the story and the side bar shows how Simon feels or shows him doing what he is trying to accomplish. The pictures show diversity very well. There are no people in the book but all different animals and they are all getting along and working together. There are bears, elephants, tigers, birds, pigs, camels, and many more. There is also writing in different languages, saying "the end" or "bye". I thought it was a cute book and would be good for younger children because it had a great rhyme scheme, so it would be good to talk about rhyming words with and there are a very of nursery rhymes introduced into the text so it would be good for the children to recognize and use text to text connections. I didn't think the book flowed together very well, the text didn't connect to make a story well and it was hard to follow but as I read it again it came together a little better but still was in a dream world and hard to follow. The illustrations were fun to look at because there was so much detail included in each picture on the page.

Birds On A Wire- By: J.Patrick Lewis & Paul B. Janeczko; Illustrated By: Gary Lippincott

This book was different from anything I have ever read or even seen. The introduction at the front of the book introduced the format of the book. The book is written as a "renga" which is an ancient Japanese version form in which poets take turns adding verses. The renga is written by two or more poets. The first poet writes three lines and the other poet follows with two lines. So it's kind of like a game or a puzzle by connecting the verses to make some sort of sense. It was really interesting to read but yet kind of challenging too. It really didn't flow together very well. On each page was three lines of text and it was followed by two italicized lines written by the other poet. It was kind of hard for me to understand and I had to read it a few times to get the just. But the description the poets used was amazing. It was written beautifully. I think this would be great to do with a class when teaching poetry, to partner up and construct a poem together. It really incorporates two different points of view into one to construct one big piece at the end. However, I don't know if I would read this to little kids. I think it is for probably fifth grade and up because of the complex set up and word usage of the story, but I think anyone is capable of the poetry pattern. The illustrations are also very detailed and beautiful and really reflect was is going on in the poem so that is another way to understand the story, to take the picture clues that are given to the reader.

Love That Dog-By: Sharon Creech

What a quick and easy read (I think it took me less than 30 minutes to read), but yet there was so much to take from the text and get out of it. It was actually kind of inspiring to me. I really hate writing poetry and have never enjoyed it. I feel like I am doing it wrong (if that is even possible) and this little boy was just throwing word and feelings on a page and created something awesome. His confidence in writing went from zero to 100% so quickly and his teachers encouragement and response really helped in to continue to try. I think a very important part to teaching is to encourage your students to believe in themselves and this book is a prime example. Without encouragement this student would still be at page 1. I thought it was cool that the poetry still constructed a story and had a beginning, middle and end in poetic form and the boy had no idea that he was doing such a thing. Sharon Creech sounded like a familiar author and after reading her biography, I realized I had read many of her books growing up (Walk Two Moons and Bloomability really ring a bell). I really liked Jack's poem, My Sky, because it was so emotional and you could tell that he was really passionate about it and really loved his dog. I also liked how the writing stayed consistent and didn't change from poetic style to a normal journal entry. I would definitely read this as a read aloud but I would make sure that everyone had a copy of the book so they could see the format and I think it would be a good book to talk about the format of poetry and how it works and the freedoms you have with it to write.