Reach & Teach

My chapter book of choice for contemporary realistic fiction was The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas. I chose this book because I wanted to see how closely the book matched the movie. A young girl names Starr struggles with her identify and sense of belonging. She attends a mostly white school while staying in a predominantly poor black neighborhood. This is sometimes the harsh reality Black people face often- being torn between who they think they are and who they think they should be in order to fit in. When Starr witnessed her longtime friend killed at the hands of police, she battles with finding her voice to stand up for what is right. Her friend being murdered at the hands of police is another tough reality Black people face. It shines light on racism in the world, police brutality against minorities, and activism.  My picture book of choice for contemporary fiction was Each Kindness written by Jacqueline Woodson & illustrated by E.B. White. This book has won both the Coret...

 After reading Chapter 6 about folklore, I chose to read The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales authored by Virginia Hamilton and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon . This folklore was intriguing to read, especially from the perspective of being an African American woman. It told the story of how people in Africa were magical and prideful before they were captured and forced to become slaves. After becoming slaves, many of them had to conform to a different way of living, resulting in them being less prideful and confident in themselves. Instead, they had to obey the commands of a "master" while working and suffering in deplorable conditions, such as a baby being hit with a whip for crying while being held on his mother's back as she works tirelessly in a field.  The images in this book were well thought out and depicted the story well, in my opinion. There were images of women and children in chains with facial expressions that scream sorrow. The illustration sh...

Flotsam by David Weisner- This week, I chose to read Flotsam, a completely wordless book that depends on the pictures to tell the story. I chose this book based on a listing from our text. For starters, I had to define what flotsam was to understand the book. If I were to read this book (or "show" in this case), it would be imperative that students understood the definition of the title to help build the context of the images in the book. Because this book has no text, the meaning of the pictures would be left up to the reader. The photos in the book does make the book easily to follow and decode; therefore, I would definitely qualify this book as a good picture book because it gets no "picturey" than this! The pictures and the setting help establish a mood, as suggested in our text. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown; Pictures by Clement Hurd- Contrary to what many may believe, this was my first time reading Goodnight Moon. I have seen the book plenty of times t...

Writing- some of us love it, while some of us hate it. Whether we are writing for work, stress relief, school, we all have taken part & shared a feeling about writing thus far in life. Personally, I have always love writing. I think I have a pretty neat handwriting, no calligraphy script or anything, but nice, neat, & legible. I also enjoy writing with colorful ink pens. It just makes writing more fun and engaging.  Our friend Leigh, the main character in the story, Dear Mr. Henshaw shares a passion for writing like me. He write letters frequently to one of his favorite authors, Mr. Henshaw. He would share personal experiences such his feelings towards his dad, being the new kid at school, and challenges he faced with his mom after his father left. Leigh would write a letter almost yearly, sometimes twice a year. To Leigh's surprise, sometimes he got responses back, other times he did not.  Once Leigh learned of Mr. Henshaw's busy schedule, he stopped writing direct le...

      For this week's blog post, I chose to read The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat. It won the Caldecott Medal in 2015. I chose this book on a library trip with my students. I read the book aloud to them, and the seemingly took interest. I also took it home and read it to my daughter. She was amazed with the pictures. Each page, she felt like she had touch or make her own version of what was happening.  The book was about an imaginary friend waiting to be chosen by an owner so they can have that sense of belonging.     The illustrations in this book were extremely colorful and full of life. The pictures complimented the words in the book. The quality of the pictures matched the quality of the words in the book, which makes this the perfect candidate for the Caldecott Medal, according to our textbook. One difference with this book is the pictures were not drawn by hand. There were instead produced by digital images. This mea...

It started, as far as I can remember, when I was 5 years old. I vividly remember having a navy blue bookshelf about 4-5 feet tall with my name "TAYLOR" going down vertically in a floral print. The bookshelf was larger than me, but it seemed like every shelf had books. Amongst my collection, I remember Dr.Seuss titles such as: "The Cat in the Hat", "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue", "Hop on Pop" , any many more. I can firmly say Dr. Seuss was a staple in my reading foundation. My mother also took time to read to me often. I would pick about 1-2 books, and we would read together right before bedtime. I strongly believe the time we invested in building my reading skills at an early age played a strong part in my success.  During my middle school years, I remember enjoying library visits and looking forward to the upcoming book fairs. Two of my favorite book series were "Junie B. Jones" by Barbara Park and "Beezus and Ramona" ...