Book Talk #1 Dead Beautiful

Book Talk #1: Dead Beautiful
Summary:

Dead Beautiful is a fictional story about a young girl in high school. Renee is just a normal girl in California who is struggling with figuring out if a boy really likes here and enjoying her break from school. However, her life quickly changes when both of her parents are found by her dead in the forest. She is thrust into an ever-changing world with many different challenges she does not know how to deal with. Her grandfather takes custody of her and informs her that she will be transferring to a private school that her mother attended at her age as well as moving away to another part of the country. This is a coming of age book for a young girl who must not only deal with her emotions of losing her mother and father but also going to a new home and school. She quickly learns that she really knew little about her parents or her heritage. When she gets to Gottfried Academy she starts to learn about ancient texts that tell of children who died, were not buried properly, and came back to life without a soul. Renee starts to learn how to stop children from stealing other people’s souls, and how to help them and herself deal with death. All of this happens while she is trying to figure out why she is so physically drawn to a young boy on campus.

Rationale:

When I was an adolescent I was struggling with death and change. This book goes through the changes that some adolescent may experience but also adds a touch of science fiction to make the text more intriguing. What some kids may pull from this text is that we all go through things in life and it is what we do with those changes hit that really determine where we will go. Another thing, Renee finds new abilities that she did not know she had when she was faced with change, and this could inspire students to learn new things/interests. This book is about a girl who is their age going through a huge change that would move her perception of the world. This book is an easy read that would allow a student to learn some new vocabulary but can also help them to read easier. For me this is one of those books I could not sit down once I started and had to know what was happening next.

Teaching Ideas:

One of the central ideas of this book is adolescent change which is something all the students are going through. The thing that students connect to in this story may be different, whether it is death, moving, or just the changes that come with growing up students will be able to relate to the main character. Three ways to use this text in the classroom would be: read the text as a class, independent reading, or get to know piece. The reading this text as a class could easily be paired with the getting to know the students. By having them read this text and discuss how the character experiences relate to their own life a teacher can get the students reading as well as learning some something new about their students struggles and where we can help them. For an independent reading, this book plus another could be offered as options for students to pick one and tie it back to the subject of coming of age. This text offers students a relatable character that may be going through similar life changes as they are.

Potential Issues:

A potential issue that will arise with this book is religion. The Academy that Renee attends has students learning how to help the dead. This may cause issues for parents and administrators because many will argue that it is teaching a new religion. When you look at this book strictly from a coming of age piece it will be easy to point out that those components are there to help the character develop and grow into the woman she is at the end of the third book. Another argument to make is that this book helps students see how life can change but also how to make the best out of these changes.

Additional Ideas:

When I was an adolescent I struggled with many changes that I did not understand, as I am sure many have. This book helped me to find a passion in reading, but it also showed me how a life can change so drastically for someone who seems to have a normal life. Whether this is taught in the classroom or given as an independent read for a student it does help a student see the changes in a life can lead to a different outcome. Questions that should be asked: Is this a modern take on a coming of age book? How will the students relate to the text? How can we as teachers relate to the text?

The Idea of Assessing and Evaluation

There has been bad talk against assessment in the past and for good reason. Teaching to the test was a common practice and students did not always learn what they needed to because the tests were on a different subject matter. However, with the coming of Common Core Standards the world of education has changed in a way for the better. Research has found that students will retain information if they are tested on it but what a teacher also needs to consider is there are different types of tests and some students do better on one rather than the other. For example, there may be four to five students in one class that would prefer to write a paper as their assessment, where as others would prefer to take an objective test.

Two things that a teacher should consider when teaching and assessing is: “their ability to apply that knowledge to texts” and “’correct answer’ quizzes, tests, or worksheets provide little or no opportunity for the expression of individual open-ended responses” (Beach225). With Common Core State Standards teachers are asking students to show they understand texts or information they are given, not just to feed it back to the teacher. This is allowing students to understand the text from their point of view and pull information out that others may not have seen as important. By giving the students more freedom there is more of an interest in what the students are learning.

Of course, with new assessment there is new assessment grading. Grade points and letter grades do ascertain if a student is turning in and completing the assignments a teacher is assigning but that does not mean that they are understanding the Common Core State Standards or just understanding the assignment. From what I have learned being in the classroom is the scale of 0 to 4 helps both the teacher and the student understand where they still need to focus learning on and where to move from here. When my mentor teacher and I ask the students how many cell bars they have when they are considering what they learned today most will put up a 3. They put up the three and can explain what they were supposed to learn that day. However, there are a few who will put up a 1 or 2 and will not struggle explaining key terms and concepts we worked on that day. It is the job of the teacher to figure out who is falling where on the scale and see where they may need additional help.

A Look at Reading and Writing Assignments

Daily we are going to be asking our students to complete tasks that align with objectives that they need to complete to pass the class, and eventually, to graduate. One such assignment will include reading and writing. We need to understand what key points will be needed in such an assignment to get our students engaged and learning. There are three major components to creating a reading and writing assignment: reading rhetorically, connecting to reading to write, and writing rhetorically. Each component must be understood individually for them to work together.

Reading rhetorically means to not just focus on what the texts is saying but to also look at the purpose and intentions of the author, and to look at the effect the reading has on the audience. Reading rhetorically has three subsections that must also be understood: (1) pre-reading, (2) reading, and (3) post-reading. Pre-reading builds up to what the students should be looking for while reading. This is where the teacher helps the students look deeper at what the audience may be, how to connect to their own lives, and understand a purpose for reading. Once the students move into the reading section, they will use their knowledge that they obtained for the pre-reading exercises to help “understand the text and to confirm, refine, or refute the predictions” (7) they had made before reading the text. Helping the students to focus their thoughts before reading will help them understand their thoughts after reading. Finally, post-reading is understanding what they have read and processing it in the bigger scheme. The bigger scheme is what is the purpose of the reading the text, understanding what the student got out of reading the text, and creating an argument or idea to help them create a topic for their writing assignment.

Post-reading often goes hand in hand with connecting to reading to writing. In connecting to reading to writing the student must have an idea of what the text is arguing or stating. From there the students can generate ideas on what they would like to argue in their paper, and the students must learn how to connect their ideas back to the text they read. In this step student will have to learn how to transition their thoughts, ideas, and information into an argument or central idea to write for a specific audience.

When transitioning into writing rhetorically students must consider: “audience, purpose, ethos, situation, message, and genre” (19). Once they have considered these things, students will be able to organize what they want to argue and what they may still need to do this. This is where the students really start to organize their thoughts and information into a paper. The students will be asked to enter the conversation that is already started in the reading that they have already completed and build upon it. The first draft or two will be the students getting their thoughts out. They are intended to be rough. Once they start really revising and organizing their thoughts and see their order of importance the students will start putting it into a well formulated essay.

What we must remember all through these processes is that students need guidance and help organizing what they are learning. Once they get the entire process down they will need less and less help. This process will help the students when they read later in life to understand what they are reading and what the purposes of them are, and it will help students to have well rounded arguments when talking to people about their readings.

Understanding Common Core Standards

Common Core State Standards are easy to understand once you get an understanding of teaching. The reading literature standards are very straight forward and easy to grasp. All you are doing is writing a lesson that attaches to each standard. For example, RL.11-12.4 states students need to determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple means or languages that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful. Words that we read can take on different means to different people and require further study and analysis. What Common Core Standards do is outline what a student should be learning. It is up to the teacher how they want to try and teach the techniques to the students.

I have recently been placed in a classroom to observe and teach. I have been excited to do this because you can only do so much reading and studying before you need hands on experience. One of the classes that my mentor teacher teaches is Bridge to College. This class is seniors who will not graduate because they did not pass the state tests and need more help making sure they can complete the common core state standards. The chapter “The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts Instruction in Grades 6-12” points out that the Common Core Standards were adopted to help students be prepared for the new skills that really must be acquired to live in our modern world.

I had not thought of how to adopt Common Core Standards and the current events into the classroom until I saw my master teacher doing an argumentative essay on “How close is Big Brother?”. The students are all given an initial article that they must read. Once they have read that article they must do further research based on what they saw in the initial article. They must complete all their own research and then formulate a thesis. Once they have done that they must write and well organized argumentative essay explaining their findings. This approach is having the students learn about events happening today while also formulating an opinion, but what this is also doing is teaching Common Core Standards in a way that students will become more engaged in.

Why Graphic Novels?

As I see it graphic novels are a way of bring picture books for an older audience or bringing older stories to new light. For me graphic novels are a fun way to read a story that allows me to picture exactly what the other pictured. I have always enjoyed graphic novels since I was a kid and the fact that so many people are now making quality stories into graphic novels excites me. I feel that students can relate to the graphic novel a little easier because they are tended towards a younger audience.

To this day I will always remember the first graphic novels I ever read, and they were the X-Men. I remember sitting there and reading what happened next to my favorite characters while seeing the actions that they were doing. The graphic novel made my mind almost bring the pictures alive to where I could see the characters moving across the page and it made the story become more alive.

What my hope is for my students is to bring reading alive where they enjoy it and want to read more. I watch the kids on my school bus read books to entertain them while we go to and from school. Sometimes it is a book for school and sometimes it is a book they wanted to read. Often times I will talk to them about what they are reading and what they wished from the book. The most common thing that I hear is that they wish that they could see some of the points from the book in picture form so that they could follow it better or have their mind picture it better.

Graphic novels are a way for people to have more fun while reading and be able to interact with the story more.

Discussing Discussion

Discussions can go one of two ways: really well or really badly. When they go really well it usually means someone has put a lot of thought and organization into what the teacher wants talked about and the questions are very organized to lead the discussion further. When a discussion goes really badly we can tell that the questions were not thought out very well and/or the students did not understand what was being asked of them.

Discussions are a great way to get students talking about the topic at hand. In many ways it can also show the teacher what the students are understanding and what they may need more clarification on. One specific type of discussion that I particularly liked was giving each person in the group roles and discussing a topic from the roles. For example having the students each taking on one of the main characters' persona while discussing something that happened in the chapter that day. This makes the students try to get into the heads of the characters in the book to try to understand them and their actions better. This can also help them to see why characters may act the way they do.

Another thing to think about when doing a discussion is making sure you have ground rules and you know where you want the discussion to go. If you let the students just run free reign of the discussion then most likely they will not get out of it what you are wanting from them. Kids these days easily get off topic. The teacher needs to be prepared with ideas on how to focus the group back in or make sure they do not get off topic in the first place. Ground rules and well focused questions can help the students stay on topic and learn from the discussion.

http://webshare.northseattle.edu/Sustainability_in_Healthcare/Discussion_as_a_Way_of_Teaching%20INC-Learning%20Circles.pdf