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. (:

The Frog Princess

The Frog Princess is apparently the book that the movie The Princess and the Frog is based on. I see some similarities but there are also a lot of differences. It is still a really good book though. It is about a princess that kisses a frog who says he is a prince so that he can turn back into a prince. She ends up turning into a frog though. She is actually a princess though and he really is a prince though. In the movie, Tiana wasn't really a princess. She was just dresseed up as one for the costume party. Also, the person that turns the prince into a frog isn't a voodoo guy. It is actually a female witch. All in all though, I still loved the book. I just think it is weird that the Disney movie The Princess and The Frog was based off of this book when they are so different.

Out Of My Mind

These past two days, I read a book called "Out Of My Mind" by Sharon Draper. I picked it to read for my project because I have a low degree of Cerebral Palsey and went to therapy with kids with Cerebral Palsey. The main character, Melody, has a severe degree of Cerebral Palsey. She is in a wheelchair with no way to communicate except a little board with words that she can point to using her thumb. It is very frusterating to her because she is very smart. She remembers everything she hears. Being unable to communicate, however, makes people think she is stupid with the exception of her family and Mrs. V. Melody finds out, however, that there is a computer that she can use that she can program words, names, and phrases into and she can "speak" with a push of a button. Once she recieves that machine, her life gets better but she's still not normal like her little sister Penny. I don't want to ruin the whole book but it is an amazing story of the struggles of a girl with a disability and it shows that they are normal just like anyone else. In my opinion though, there is no such thing as normal. As Melody puts it, we all have disabilities. This book is great for Middle School kids. I see bullying occuring a lot in Middle Schools now and it addresses that issue with two characters in the book that bully Melody. It is a very well written, captivating book. I loved reading it!

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I will be posting about the books I read here and some things that I learn from the chapters we read in this class. I hope you all will enjoy reading about my adventure through this class!!!!!!