Book Soundtrack

For one of my listening lessons I had to compose this quarter, I taught the concept of tone. Tone is the emotional feeling or attitude the composer or author has towards the subject of a song or a book. Throughout the song or book, the tone can change. A great way to introduce this concept to students is to have them listen to different songs from current movie soundtracks. By calling attention to the tempo, volume, and overall sound of a song, the teacher can model for students how to identify tone in music. After having students break into groups and identify the tone of different movie soundtrack songs, the teacher can assess what they have learned. To tie this back to the classroom novel they are reading, the teacher can have the class come up with a book soundtrack. After selecting key scenes from the novel, the teacher can have students listen and pick appropriate songs that convey the tone of that scene. To go even further with the book soundtrack idea, students can design an appropriate CD cover for the soundtrack as well.

Flocabulary

I just want to say that I love my fellow classmates in the Integrated Language Arts program. They find the coolest websites/ideas to use in the classroom. One of them just introduced me to the website www.flocabulary.com. This website gives ideas for incorporating hip-hop in the classroom. There are ideas for every grade-level and for several subjects: vocabulary/reading, writing, social studies, and math. It has some free videos on the website for teachers to use, but their main products are for sale. Flocabulary is like the equivalent of School House Rock, but with hip-hop music! I've only watched the free Edgar Allan Poe videos of The Pit and the Pendulum and The Cask of Amontillado. I had my sister, who just read The Cask of Amontillado in class, watch the video and she loved it. She said it really helped make sense of the story.

Candor by Pam Bachorz

Here is a journal entry I wrote and presented to my class as a booktalk. I wrote it from the point of view of the main character, Oscar:

Dear Journal,

I can't believe I'm actually resorting to writing in a journal right now, but things are that crazy. And all because some girl has decided to move into Candor and shake things up. Okay, I'll admit it: Nia is not just some girl. She's only the most beautiful and refreshing person I've ever met in my life--but that's beside the point. What is she thinking riding a skateboard around Candor?! No one even owns a skateboard around here. Skateboards are for rebels, kids who go against the grain--kids like me. But those kids aren't allowed to exist in Candor. If only my dad knew. It won't be too long before dad's brainwashing messages start seeping into her brain. With all the hidden speakers around town, it won't be long till her total personality changes. These messages will convince her to drop all her rebellious behavior to become a perfect, obedient child and citizen of Candor. Everything that makes Nia Nia will be gone. And that's exactly why I'm going crazy. For some reason, I can't bear to see her changed. I don't know why--I've seen dad's messages turn every new kid that has moved here into a cookie-cutter clone, who eats healthy, studies for fun, and strives to please his parents. But, I can't see that happen to her. So, I think I'm going to save her. I'm going to feed her my own messages--the messages I listen to to keep ME in control--the messages that my dad doesn't know about--the ones that tell me to stay strong and to stay in charge. I've gotta be careful though. If dad were to suspect that I or Nia knew the truth, or that we were fighting his messages, we'd be sent to the Listening Room. Then we'd be goners for sure.

Wordle

At the top: Words from the lyrics of "Amazing Grace."
On the bottom: Words from the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.

Some classmates introduced me to this website: www.wordle.net. On this site you can copy and paste any amount of text into a box which scrambles the words up into a "word cloud." The words which appear the most often are made larger than the words which appear less frequently. Once it creates the word cloud for you, you can mess around with the layout, font, and color of the cloud. This could be a simple and creative way for students to artistically publish their papers; it could possibly serve as a cover to their actual paper. If students have a problem with repeating the same words over and over again in their papers, this could be a great way to help them identify which words they keep repeating. It's also interesting to plug the words of your favorite speech, poem, song, or short story into the box to see which words appear the most often. Try it out.

Pairing YA Lit with the Classics

Since taking the Young Adult Literature class at Wright State, I have been deeply interested in pairing young adult (YA) books with the classics. Let's face it; the classics are hard to read. Even I find it hard to sit down with some classics and read them strictly for pleasure. What makes these books hard to read for students? Well first of all, almost all the classics were written specifically for an adult audience. The majority of them contain archaic language, adult characters, and situations that teens just can't relate to. This is where YA books come in. YA books, written specifically for teens, with teenage characters and relatable situations, can be paired with any classic and used as a tool to help students read the harder texts. There are many ways to pair YA books with the classics; however, I think the easiest way to do so is to pair books according to their similar themes.

I did a final portfolio project for my Young Adult Literature class on YA books to pair with George Orwell's, 1984. The YA books I chose to pair with 1984 were the following: The Declaration, by Gemma Malley; Candor, by Pam Bachorz; and Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld. Each of these novels contain dystopian societies where the themes of mind control, the abuse of power, and conformity are explored. These themes can also be found in Orwell's 1984. By having students read one of these YA books, before reading the classic, they will be able to experience similar themes in a context which is easier for them to understand and relate to. In this way, students will be prepared to read the harder text and will hopefully find reading the classic to be much more bearable.

GoodReads & The Glass Castle

I know I'm going a little blog crazy today, but being the English major that I am, I have a lot to say. Plus, this is a great tool, along with Facebook, to distract me from getting my work done during finals week! Speaking of Facebook, I found another addicting site at www.goodreads.com. My English Education teacher at Wright State suggested this site to all of us in class, so I decided to start an account. On your profile, you list all the books you have read and rate them on a 1-5 star rating. You can even write your own reviews about the books. It contains book summaries and book reviews. Similar to Facebook, you have friends on this site and can comment on what they are reading. This could be a great tool for the English classroom. The teacher could require students to make their own profiles and post reviews on the books they have read.

Right now I am reading Jeannette Walls's memoir, The Glass Castle. I don't usually read a lot of memoirs and biographies, but this one really has me captivated. In the beginning of the book, Jeannette is looking out the window of her cab in the middle of a traffic jam, on her way to a party in New York City. She sees a homeless woman rooting through a dumpster and realizes it's her mother. Scared that her mother will recognize her and shout out to her, Jeannette tells the cab driver to turn around and take her home. The next chapter begins to tell the story of her childhood. Jeannette, along with her two sisters and brother were brought up by a drunken, inventive father and an eccentric, artistic mother. Time and time again, these parents uproot their children to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. At times, this family lives in cars, run-down shacks, cardboard boxes, and relatives' homes. Although the reader gets the sense that these parents really do love their children, their irresponsible and sometimes insensitive actions do not always show this. I'm about half way through the book right now and still cannot decide whether or not I understand Jeannette's parents. It's been a great read so far, and I recommend it to everyone!

Booktalks

One book that has greatly inspired me is Nancie Atwell's, The Reading Zone. This book explains different ways in which teachers can incorporate free reading into the classroom. So many times, students begin to lose interest in reading when they enter high school. Reading becomes the equivalent of writing papers and completing worksheets, which understandably squashes any teenager's love of reading. In this book, Atwell discusses the idea of booktalks, where students and teachers suggest great book titles to one another. Atwell states that, "Booktalks are short, direct, and mostly enthusiastic: endorsements of particular titles, not oral reports" (67). I believe that this is a great way for students to hear what their peers are reading. Some of the blogs I post on here will be in the form of a booktalk. I suggest Atwell's book to any teacher of reading. It has some great ideas to turn students into life-long readers. I have already been buying books for my future classroom library. (Half Price Books is great place to buy gently used books) I've really been trying to buy a variety of books from every genre to suit the needs and interests of all my students. If I can do one thing as a teacher, it would be to instill a love of reading in students. Hopefully by incorporating Atwell's idea of the Reading Zone into my own classroom, I will be able to do so.

Diving into the World of Blogs

Hello everyone. So my dad inspired me to start a blog of my own. I've actually been planning to do this for awhile, but never got around to it. When I start officially teaching I would like to have a website for students to visit for book suggestions, helpful websites, homework information, contact information, etc. For now, I'd just like to use this blog to share my own book suggestions, my new teaching ideas, and my life as a college student. Hopefully I'll have time to keep this thing up. Enjoy :)