I have heard of Number the Stars before.  I didn't remember reading it in school, but the cover definitely hit part of my memory when I saw the book.  After reading about 20 pages, I realized that I had indeed read this while growing up.  Bits and parts came flooding back to me as I finished the book.  All things aside, what an excellent read!  I can see now why this book caters to adolescent readers.  The plot is focused around a 10-year-old girl and her family, so many young readers will relate (given they're around that age). 

I could see myself relating to Annemarie at that age.  She's old enough to remember how things were before the Nazis took over, but still young enough not to get the full complexities of a lot of the issues surrounding her life.  The part that still sticks out to me the most is when Kirsti shoves the soldier's hand away when he plays with her curls.  When my brother was younger, I often remember him saying or doing things that he just should not have in front of people.  I definitely understand Annemarie's frustrations with her younger sister and feeling like she always had to look after her.  When my parents divorced, my brother was three and I was six.  Six years old is really not that mature, but I took my brother under my wing while my mom worked to support us and my sister.  Even though I cared for my brother, there would be times when I just wanted to lock him in the basement until my mom got home from work.  Once time, he was playing with his toys in the living room where we also had this big fish tank.  The way it was structured, there was about two inches of space between the floor and the bottom of the tank.  Well, my brother got a toy stuck under the tank and decided to reach with his arm.  Yep.  Now he's stuck.  Since my mom wasn't home, I freaked out a little bit and worried for my brother.  Later, I was just annoyed with him.  This resonates quite similar to how Annemarie feels about Kirsti.

While a part of me connects to Annemarie's personality, I definitely felt more connected to the adults in this book.  As a very young adult of 20 years old, I don't know if I could ever do something as courageous as those people do.  It makes me feel kind of like a wimp, to be honest.  These people risked their lives in a great way to help their friends.  When the soldiers come to the Johansen's apartment while their hiding Ellen, I felt for Mrs. Johansen.  She kept telling the soldiers, "Please, not too loud. My daughters are trying to sleep."  She was trying so hard to get them to realize that this was just a normal household with little children in it.  As a future teacher, I can only imagine some situations I may potentially be in.  I'm sure my responses would be quite similar.  Who knows what kind of things will happen when I'm teaching, and I need to make sure I'm prepared for anything.

I think Number the Stars should be a staple in the classroom.  It presents pertinent issues appropriately for children.  It isn't too harsh, but it doesn't try to be invisible, either.  Plus, by having the main character as a young child, it makes it easier for students to connect with the story.  For example, you can ask your class "How would you feel if you were separated from your parents and you had absolutely no idea where they were or no way to communicate with them?"  Some may be like, woo hoooooo!!  But in the mindset of the story, many students may really consider and connect.

Coming Full Circle

I have participated in numerous literature circles throughout my academic career.  Have I ever called them literature circles?  No.  I think my teachers did that for a reason.  It would be like going to a book club.  And in middle school and high school, the last thing you wanted to do was be involved in a book club.  While I always adored reading and talking about new books, at that age, that is the last thing any teenager wants to talk about with you.  Even though I read what I was supposed to and participated in discussion, my efforts were lackluster, simply because I figured my peers wouldn't appreciate it.

It wasn't until my senior year of high school in AP English.  About halfway through the school year, my teacher told us to bring in one of our favorite books and be ready to talk about it.  My hand shot up immediately -- "Does this have to be something we read for a class?"  I realllllly didn't want to talk about The Great Gatsby or The Scarlet Letter anymore.  She informed the class that it could be any book we wanted.  I got nervous because I didn't know how I would choose just one (huge nerd).  When we got to class the next day, everyone was enthusiastic when talking about their books; we gave plot summaries, character analyses,  major themes and symbols to the class with pride.  I realized that day that once we, as a class, were given the opportunity to discuss what we wanted to, there was no pressure.  We were excited about reading again.

In the very first pages of Literature Circles, Daniels mentions a teacher from Washington Irving school in Chicago.  Madeleine Maraldi meets with her fellow teachers and asks them: "How can we teach better?  What do we need to focus on, to learn, get better at?"  I wrote "YES!" in the margin of the book after reading this quote.  I think we're so quick to point out all the flaws in students that we rarely take the time to look at our teaching methods to see if there's anything we can adjust.  Now, I know this isn't true for all teachers; a lot of teachers I've had in class or met through observations are very keen on their methods and know when they need to change something.  However, when a school has a collective problem with students, then it's time to take a step back and reconfigure.

More to come later...

I definitely want to incorporate literature circles in my classroom.  There are definite pros to this technique, but also some cons.  In my high school, our class periods were 42 minutes long.  By the time everyone's settled, homework is checked and instructions are given, you've lost about 15 minutes.  I don't think this would leave me enough time for an effective literature circle.  However, that doesn't mean the school I will be in will be that way either.  The option was brought up in class about having an after-school lit circle session.  I think this is an absolutely fantastic idea.  However, some kids can't get rides or have other obligations after school, too.  If they are dedicated to the extracurricular activity though, you can count on them showing up.

Student choice is a large factor in literature circles.  I am all for student choice.  For me as a student, I feel like that is what motivates me.  As a teacher, however, I will need to know when to limit their choices.  Yes, I want them to choose their own book.  But it is important for me to know my limits.  Do I want to let them choose any book or do I want to give them a specific number of options and allow them to choose from that?  Another option with student choice is allowing them to determine which "role" they would be in the group.  It gives them some flexibility and lets them gain some responsibility on their own terms.

Press "One" for English?

As per our certification requirement, we are required to visit schools and observe the students, the teacher and the techniques used in the classroom.  I think it's safe to say that the most important thing we have to "look for" is diversity.  In fact, if we don't write up an accurate and legitimate summary of diversity in the classroom, our grade suffers.  How we define diversity in the classroom is usually by how the kids are seated, what's on the posters hanging up, or if examples of math problems include names like "Juan" or "Mohammed."  Why don't we, as observers and future educators, ever question the assigned books for English or Language Arts classes?

 The House on Mango Street was one of the books in high school that I always wanted to read, but just never got the opportunity to do so.  I decided to put my adolescent wish to rest and read this first.  What a great read!  Since I already knew this week's theme was multiculturalism, I kept an eye out for that while reading.  I really liked how the diversity was there, but the struggles that the characters dealt with was a bit more subtle.  Not only was it subtle, but the problems weren't described in grave detail.  It was treated more as observation.  I liked this, but I felt like it put the character's story in a bit of a pickle.  She wasn't getting enough credit in the text for what she actually had to experience.  Also, there are multiple instances in the book where the characters speak Spanish, simply because they cannot formulate any English.  This adds to the theme of multiculturalism, obviously, but it also connects to one of the articles we had to read: "Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard? 

In this article, the author retells the story of her own childhood experience with English.  More specifically, she writes how her English teacher in high school put her down for the way she spoke.  The teacher does this by comparing the students in the classroom.  Let me be honest here: if I was 15 years old and my teacher decided to classify me in the classroom based on my father's position in society, I reallllllly don't think I'd put up with that.  The author stated something that made me think: "The real version of the melting pot is that people of diverse backgrounds are mixed together and when they come out they're supposed to look like Vanna White and Dan Rather.  The only diversity we celebrate is tacos and chop suey at the mall" (100).  From reading that, I got the overall impression that diversity stops when you get into the classroom.  I'm sorry, but no.  It shouldn't be that way, and as future teachers, we need to do everything we can to keep our classrooms diverse.

When comparing The House on Mango Street with this article, I found a lot of common ground.  Between the two of them, it's important to recognize that the characters and the students alike are being punished for not speaking English.  Even more than that, they're being taught to completely rid themselves of their inherent culture.  I really appreciated how the author of the article allowed her students to write their own stories, complete with culture.  The reactions of students to their peers' stories was incredible.  That is kind of reaction we need to witness when we teach our students. 

As teachers, we need to keep personal biases at the door and respect each of our students for whatever culture they represent.  Having the students reach inside and write stories that retell their life experiences can help you connect to them and help them connect to the class.  Since school is the place where these students will mold and shape their views of life, we need to make sure they're comfortable once they're out of the classroom.  It's important for the teacher to help the student find their voice and hold it for years to come. 

In a country that is constantly increasing in diversity, it is no surprise that classrooms are the same way.  As teachers, we should appreciate this and consider it a great opportunity.  We are able to learn from these students as well as teach them.  What more could a teacher ask for?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Comic Relief

Aside from Get Fuzzy in the Sunday paper, the last comic I remember reading was on the back of a Bazooka gum wrapper.  I was sitting in my dad's truck driving to my grandmother's house when I read the comic.  I was intrigued by it, but at the same time, it did not make much of a difference in my reading life.  Since then, I really had no desire to choose comic books or graphic novels over another kind.  When I was younger, my brother was very into the Captain Underpants series, which was a collection of graphic novels for "preteens," you could say.  Both of us enjoyed those, but they only lasted for so long.

After reading this week's assignments, I realized that if more of my teachers incorporated this kind of text while I was growing up, I might have had a better appreciation for it.  Graphic novels were not encouraged in my school at all; in fact, I'd go as far as to say they were completely discouraged.  They, according to my teachers, served no literary purpose in the classroom.  Well, apparently none of them ever tried before, huh?

Having not been a fan of comics, I was a little hesitant to begin this week's reading assignments.  I was pleasantly surprised, however, after going through everything.  I particularly enjoyed American Born Chinese.  When it started, I was like "How does a monkey fit into this??"  I liked how the author split up each story and would go back to it after another one.  The funny thing I realized here is that even though the first story stopped abruptly, I was able to quickly re-enter it when the author started it up again.  Sometimes this isn't the easiest thing because we tend to forget what was presented first (Or, at least I do. Short-term memory loss is never a good thing).  More importantly, students of 12 or 13 would most likely forget, too.  The illustrations help the reader to jump back into the story.

As a teacher, I think a primary goal should be to find a text that your students can relate to or connect with.  I think American Born Chinese would do that.  Each story has a common theme -- the main character is struggling with identity.  Most students in middle school and high school (hell, even college) struggle to find out who they are.  I think the one that most of my students would connect with would be Jin Wang's story when he realizes he likes Amelia.  Who hasn't experienced that realization that the person sitting across from you is all of a sudden sooooooo cute?? While these students may not fess up to this in the front of the class, I could incorporate journal entries into the lesson.  This way, the responses would take a more personal approach and the students would not feel pressured to say what is right to impress the class.

I think including comics or graphic novels in my classroom is a smart choice.  First and foremost, I would definitely offer Dr. Mortimore's article on the technical aspects of comics.  This helped me understand comics better and led me to have a greater appreciation for them.  I'm sure if I showed this to students, they would have a greater understanding about the dimensions of comics, too.  What I would really like to do is have my students draw their own comics for a story, similar to how the article from NCTE described.  When I was in 11th grade, we were reading Beowulf.  My teacher had us make a comic strip about the story.  I definitely comprehended that story better by creating it for myself.  If I know that as a student I got it, I need to realize that my students will likely respond the same way.

Here are two links that describes some activities with comics.  The second one deals primarily with ESL students, which was discussed in YGBB Chapter 5.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/activities/activities-using-comic-strips
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Derrick-UsingComics.html

From the Outside Looking In

In Wilhelm’s “You Gotta BE the Book”, the section “Looking at Student Reading” stuck out to me the most.  As a teacher, you do need to teach the things mandated by particular curriculum.  However, it is more important to listen to what the student wants.  In this section, Wilhelm writes that “…through the initial interviews and conferences, it seemed that the real reading lives of my students were led outside of school” (39).  As a student, I can completely relate to that statement.  When interviewing the students, Wilhelm discovered that the majority of them felt that they could not express their feelings through literature assigned in school; rather, they were expected to analyze and interpret.  When growing up, I often felt at a disadvantage when reading assigned stories.  Sometimes I just didn’t want to read them; I felt no connection to the text.  I feel that students who are learning different ways to respond to literature should have a wide variety of choices to be able to respond to.

I think the first step here is encouragement.  How can a student develop a meaningful relationship with literature if the teacher doesn’t encourage it?  Have the students start with magazines.  At least at this point, they are engaging in some type of reading.  Perhaps deliver a class survey asking the students what their favorite hobby or topic is for literature; this way you can offer them suggestions of outside reading.  Once a student finds something they appreciate, their relationship with reading can become much more intense.  

As a teacher, I want to make sure I encourage reading in my classroom, not just teach it.  I’m sure at some level, I will assign book reports to my students.  For the book reports, I can split up the amount of classic and contemporary books they read.  When I was in ninth grade, all of our book reports were on required classic novels.  We could pick from a list, but at the end of the day, I still did not want to read Hemingway.  At this point in my academic career, I felt at a complete disadvantage because I had no say in what I wanted to read.  Sure, I got to pick from a list, but that doesn’t give me as a student much credit.  In tenth grade, my wish came true.  I was finally allowed to choose my own books.  Given freedom in high school is the best feeling.  My teachers in high school were so keen on making sure everyone knew they were the authoritative figure.  Being allowed to pick my own book was important for me.  It allowed me to be much more creative when completing my book reports.  I want to give that feeling to my students.  I think by being allowed to pick their own book, they obviously will be more in-touch with outside reading.