Literature Circles

The book discusses how children should be engaged in literature discussions. The best way that I have seen to do this is through Literature Circles. This is done by having several books selected and either assigning the books to the students or having them sign up for a book. Then, the students that are assigned to the same book get together and form a book club of sorts. They all read the book at the same pace. They are also assigned roles for each reading. One person illustrates a scene from the book. One person finds unfamiliar vocabulary words and looks them up and records them. Another summarizes the chapter. There are many other different roles that teachers can assign the students based on how many there are in the group. Then, after they have finished reading and doing their role, they will get together as a group and present what they did. They used this at my grade school that I went to as a child and we are also doing it in a college class that I am in. I find that this is very effective and really interests the students.

Virtual Author Visits

The book mentioned how beneficial it is to have an author come and visit the classroom and read a book or answer questions from students. It also noted that it is very expensive though. This is why they suggested virtual author visits. This can be done by contacting the author that you wish to do this with and seeing if they are willing to do it. If they are, there are many ways a virtual visit can be conducted. The author can speak with the class using a webcam. The author can also do a live chat. He can also do something on a social media site such as Twitter. This can really interest students in reading even more.

Banned Books

I had heard about banned books way before I read the textbook but the textbook made me more interested in looking into banned books. First of all, there is a week dedicated to banned books. It takes place from September 30th to October 6th. Some books are only banned from certain schools or counties. Other books may be challenged which means they were thinking about banning them. The Catcher in the Rye was a banned book. Forever by Judy Bloom was also a banned book. One of my favorite author's books, Looking for Alaska by John Green was almost banned as well. This is a very controversial issue and it is one that I disagree in. Parents should monitor what their children read and it shouldn't come down to schools having to remove books from their library or having to confiscate books from students.

This is from when John Green first released Will Grayson, Will Grayson. I really want to read this book after I reread Paper Towns. It says this in the video but I love the idea he had about writing the book. The book is about two boys named Will Grayson. John Green writes as one Will Grayson. David Levithan wrote as another one. They each took time writing one chapter at a time. It really was a great idea that blends two people's writing styles together. This book is for high school students or older. I can't wait to see what it is like!

America's illiterate!

Found this on Tumblr.

Fault in our Stars

So I decided to do a post on the most recent book John Green has written titled "The Fault in Our Stars". It really is an amazing book. I couldn't put it down. To summarize it without providing spoilers is hard but I am going to try. Basically, Hazel is a 16 year old girl that is dying from cancer and she is stable but her diagnoses has always been terminal cancer. She basically just sits in her house all day attached to oxygen waiting to die. She goes to cancer support group though for kids with cancer, just to make her parents happy. She meets a boy at the support group though that changes her life forever. Like I said, I really can't go into more detail but when I was thinking about reading it, I didn't think it would be that good but I decided to read it because it was John Green and he is my favorite author. Once I got into it, like I said, I couldn't put it down. It is really captivating and it has so much emotion in it that it's amazing. Everyone should definitely read it! If you have time, the video above is him reading the first chapter. Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

John Green

If you look on my sidebar, you will hopefully see 4 videos with guys named Hank and John Green. John Green is the guy that is my favorite. He is, in my opinion, one of the most talented authors for young adults right now. His stories captivate even me. Anyways, I'll probably write a blog about some of his books later. For now I'll just focus on him as a person.


John Green is the New York Time is bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns. He is also cowrote the book Will Grayson, Will Grayson. He was received numerous awards such as the Michael L. Printz Award in 2006, Edgar Award winner of 2009, and has also twice been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His books have been published in more than a dozen languages as well.

In 2007, John and his brother Hank began to post videos on YouTube. The videos created a group of people called nerdfighters who “fight for intellectualism and to decrease the overall worldwide level of suck.” They encouraged their nerdfighters to do good things and they have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight poverty in the developing world and they also planted thousands of trees around the world in May 2010 to celebrate Hank’s 30th birthday. They still continue to upload 3 videos a week to their Vlog (video blog for those who don’t know) VlogBrothers. Their videos have been viewed more than 75 million times, and their channel is one of the most popular in the history of online video. He is also an active Twitter user with more than 1.1 million followers. He also comes from Orlando, Florida originally but now lives with his wife and son in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Read Alouds

Not only am I learning about read alouds from the book, but I also learned a lot from last semester about read alouds too! I even got to participate in one! It was so much fun and I learned a lot about how to do one. Let me tell you what I know about read alouds though.

1.      It’s not just reading a book to children.

Trust me, when I heard about read alouds for the first time in my spring semester, that’s all I though a read aloud was. When I started reading the book “Reading Magic” though, it shocked me. It’s so much more than that!

2.      They are so important!

Apparently doing read alouds to children from birth is a good way of getting them interested in reading later in life. I thought it sounded ridiculous at first but I later found an example in my own life. I have a friend that is very envious of how fast I can read. He told me it takes him a week to read a book that takes me a day to read. When I asked him if his parents ever read to him as a child, he responded no. I was read to all the time as a child so I guess that is part of the reason why I am such an avid reader today.

3.      They need to be engaging!

You need to vary your voice. Make it slow if the character is moving slow or creeping around the house. Make it fast if the character is running. Make your voice high pitched if the character speaking is a female. Make it deep if the character is a male. Use your judgement.

4.      Ask questions.

You should stop and ask questions every once in a while. This will make sure they are focused and comprehending the story you are reading.

5.      Have fun!

If you have fun reading aloud, the children will see that and might even start to enjoy reading too!

Hope this all was a helpful summary of read alouds. Go out and buy Reading Magic if you want to know more than what our textbook teaches us. It really is a good book and an easy read!

Teachers should get paid like babysitters!

This is something I found on facebook which is amazing. A MUST read if you have never read it before!

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - babysit! We can get that for minimum wage. That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan--that equals 6 1/2 hours). Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations. LET'S SEE.... That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries). What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year. Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here!

The average teacher's salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student--a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids! WHAT A DEAL!!!! Make a teacher smile; re-post this to show appreciation for all educators. (: