Monday, July 14, 2008
Posting 3: Literature Circles
Discuss your roles within the literature circle and how you might use literature circles in your classroom. Describe your thoughts/feelings about your book: Was it a ‘good’ book? Why? How could you use this book to teach a content area(s) (math, language arts, science, and/or social studies)? Each person post one of the following: Summary of the book; short description of the characters; short description of the setting short description of the plot, and short explanation of the theme(s).
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13 comments:
I liked the experience of using literature circles. I think it would be a really good thing to use literature circles in the classroom. It would be positive in older elementary grades by reading chapter books and letting them do a couple chapters every couple days, like we did. In younger grades you could simply let the children get in groups and tell each other what they liked about the story. Not all children are going to take the same meaning from the story, so that can help students have different perspectives. My group read Bride to Terabithia, and Number The Stars. I thought both were very good books. Number the Stars by Lowis Lowry is about a young girl growing up in Denmark during the holocaust time period. The ten year old girl, Annemarie, has a best friend, Ellen, who is Jewish. One day Ellen's church goes to her house and tells her that the solders came to the church and took all the names of the members. Ellen's family does not exactly know what the solders want with them, but they know it is not good. Annamarie's family decides to help Ellen's family by getting them by boat to Sweden. They are successful and Eleen's family arrives safely in Sweden. A couple years later Denmark is freed and Annmarie knows her best friend will be coming home soon. Sadly her sister's (who had previously died) finance was killed because of helping Jews escape. The themes of this book were bravery, friendship, and mainly standing up for what is right. This books would be good to teach for history because it shows facts of how the holocaust really was. I thought it was an excellent book and I am very glad I read it.
it was a good experience overall. i liked all the roles except summarizing; i don't know why, but i have always hated summarizing things. i liked all the other roles though; the plot and character mapping was really cool. it was something new to me; i'd never heard of that task before. oh and i loved walk two moons; i loved it the first time, but this time, i loved it even more. it is near and dear to my heart. i will read it over and over again, and i will surely recommend it to my students. it could be used in social studies, if you are discussing geography. also it could be used in a cultural discussion, especially about Indians. it could also be used in a discussion about people moving from rural to urban areas. the themes in this book are family, death, love, romance of the young and old, abandonment, coping with death and with abandonment, the ability to and the effects of moving on, nature, friendship, acceptance, trust, and suspicion.
Doing the literature circles were a great experience. I enjoy getting into small groups and hearing everyone’s opinions. It was very interesting. I believe literature circles are better for the older elementary students because they have a better understanding of what is going around. Reading a few chapters a week and maybe calling Mondays our “Circle Time” will get children involved. Children like to take over situations and assigning each child a specific role makes them feel important. I would put 4 or 5 students in each group and have a new group leader each week to choose the roles.
“Walk Two Moons” was an incredible story. The story line was great. Sal kept me entertained. I wanted to keep reading on because it was so interesting and thrilling. I loved all of Sal’s stories. I could easily use this book as a history source or social studies project. Learning about the Native American heritage is a very fun and unique experience for children. We can learn about their way of living, the foods they eat, how they dress, what they do for fun, etc.
The characters of “Walk Two Moons”: Sal- She is a laid back young, 13 year old who narrates the story while riding in the car with her grandparents. She is very compassionate and thoughtful about things, but she is very defiant to adults. She doesn’t know who to trust anymore since her mother is gone. Phoebe Winterbottom: Just like Sal! They are best friends. The more Sal gets to know Phoebe, the more she sees how she was to her own mother. Phoebe does not have respect for her mother like she should. She is very elaborate when it comes to things happening. She always makes them 10 times more. She loves drama. Deep down, she realizes that her family really loves and cares for her. Prudence: Phoebe’s sister. She acts just like Phoebe. Grams and Gramps: CrAzY and unpredictable!! Sal’s father’s parents. Drive Sal up to Lewiston, Idaho to visit her mother’s grave on her birthday. They have been arrested many time for acting crazy and Sal is worried about them but confides in them for love and comfort. She absolutely loves the adventures that they go on. Sal’s father: he is a kind and compassionate person who is way too gentle. He moves to Euclid, Ohio after the death of his wife because he couldn’t take the grief and more. He has become friends with Ms. Cadaver, who was the last one to be with his wife before the tragic accident. He is always sad and Sal tries to comfort him. Sal’s mother (Chanhassan): she was always depressed and upset because she could never be like her husband. She ends up leaving and going to Idaho, but dies in a tragic accident. Mrs. Winterbottom: She works her booty off for NOTHING! Her family does not give her the credit she deserves. She leaves one day, just like Sal’s mother did, to find herself in the past. Mr. Winterbottom: He is very distant from his family, only working and coming home. When his wife leaves, he realizes how much she meant to the family. Margaret Cadaver: The last person who was with Sal’s mother before she died. She got Sal’s father a job so that he could move away from the farm. Sal realizes that Ms. Cadaver is just her father’s friend and that her father is very grateful to have her. Phoebe thinks that Ms. Cadaver has done away with her husband, but he also tragically dies in a car accident. Mr. Birkway: Ms. Cadaver’s twin brother. Sal’s passionate English teacher. Mrs. Partridge: Ms. Cadaver and Mr. Birkway. She is blind, but can tell how old someone is just by touching their face. Mary Lou Finney: Ben’s cousin and Sal’s classmate. Phoebe doesn’t like her. Mary Lou’s parents are very laid back and calm of their chaotic holdhold. The lunatic: (Mike) Shows up first on the Winterbottom’s porch looking for Mrs. Winterbottom. Later on, it is said that Mike is Mrs. Winterbottom’s son. Sergeant Bickle is his adopted father. I really enjoyed “Walk Two Moons.” In was a great story!
I liked the idea of literature circles because it really gives the kids responsibility when reading. They know that they will have a specific job to perform and can look for certain things in the book instead of just skimming over their readings. It also gives them a chance to see things in the book from their classmate's perspectives. I think literature circles could be used for any subject. Children could be assigned a reading assignment from a science or social studies book and discuss it in their literature circles just as easily as any other book. Our group read Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson and Number the Stars by Lois Lowery. Bridge to Terabithia is about Jess, who lives a hard life on the farm in the rural South. He meets a girl named Leslie who becomes his best friend. They venture out into the woods to escape their harsh lives. They find a spot across a large creek that they name Terabithia. They also name themselves as the rulers of this magical land. They play there often until one day Jess takes a trip with one of his teachers without Leslie. It's been raining for days and the creek is flooded. Leslie decides to go to Terabithia alone, but the rope she and Jess have been using to swing across the creek breaks and she drowns in the flooded creek. Jess returns from his trip and finds out the horrible news. He tries to cope with the loss of his best friend. He eventually goes back to Terabithia and builds a bridge across the large creek. He also tells his younger sister May Belle about Teribithia. I would say a major theme of this story would be death and how Jess copes with the loss of Leslie. Another important theme would be childhood or Jess' lack of childhood because his parents expect so much out of him. Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. I had heard a lot about it, but never read it before. I know it will be an important part of my classroom and a great discussion piece.
The jobs assigned to me in the literature circle were vocabulary finder, story mapper, and summarizer. I enjoyed the literature circle because it helped bring the students together to discuss and relate to the story. I would like to use literature circles in my classroom to help with participation. I believe it will help the students relate to each other by expressing their personal opinions about the book. I liked the book, Bridge to Terabithia, because it acknowledges many every problems children deal with, along with serious issues. Children will be able to relate to the book about school, bullies, family financial difficulties, and death. The book includes the controversial issue of the Bible and going to hell for not believing in that religion. The book could be used to teach a Language Arts lesson about spelling, definition of words, grammar, and punctuation. There are many characters that play a role in the book. Janice Avery is a girl at school that bullies all the children. Miss Edmunds is the liberal music teacher that all the children love, while all the parents and teachers despise her for being ‘hippie’. Leslie is a girl that has a wonderful imagination. She is not very close to her parents and calls them by their first names, rather than mom or dad. Leslie’s uses her excellent imagination to take her away from her troubles. She is very outgoing, brave, and intelligent. In this way, she is not like most of the children at school and is picked on for being different. Leslie’s parents are both writers and from a high class environment. They decide that the city is not allowing them to enjoy being together as a family. They have plenty of money but want to have a more simple life. They did not like the fast paced, upscale life they were becoming used to. Jess is a boy that works hard without complaint and feels his parents do not notice. He loves art but does not show anyone for fear of being called a sissy. He understands his parent’s financial struggles but feels unappreciated for his efforts to help them as much as he can. May Belle is Jess’s younger sister that adores him but sometimes gets in his way. Jess’s other sisters are spoiled and lazy. They whine all the time, never help around the house, and always spend money the family needs. Jess’s parents show favoritism and are unfair in the way they treat their son compared to their daughters. They have many financial problems and do not manage their money well.
I really liked the idea of literature circles because dicussing the book made us realize certain things we may have missed individually during reading, and bring up interesting topics that another person may not have thought about while reading.
I thought the roles were a good part because it causes each person to focus on a specific aspect of the book. Each role helps you understand the book a little bit better. It is a lot for each child to think about on their own, so splitting up each role and then discussing it as a group helps the children have a better understanding of each aspect.
I thought "Bud, not Buddy" was a good book. It has issues like racism and is at the time period of the Great Depression. I think children can learn a lot about morals and how to treat one another through this book.
I also think that you could use this book to teach the content area of English. Most of it is in Bud's words, and he is almost never grammatically correct. You could take sentences that Bud writes in the book and have the students correct them.
You could also use it to teach history since it is in the time period of the Great Depression.
The main character of this book is Bud. Bud is a ten year old boy who runs away from a foster home and decides he is going to try to find the man that he thinks is his father. This man is Herman E. Calloway. He is a great musician. He is actually Bud's grandfather which you do not find out until the end of the book. Angela Caldwell is Bud's mother. She is dead, but she was talked about a lot in the book. Miss Thomas, Steady Eddie, Roy 'Dirty Deed' Breed, Doug 'the thug' Tenant, and Jimmy are all members of the Herman E. Calloway's band. They are all good friends of Herman and help out with Bud.
The Amoses were Bud's foster family. Todd Amos picked on Bud and caused the Amoses to punish him, causing him to run away.
Jerry was another friend from the home who was also placed in a foster home at the same time Bud was. Bugs was also from the foster home. His names was Bugs because he once had a roach crawl inside his ear. Bud meets up with him later in the book, and they plan to run away together but Bud misses the train.
Bud has his first kiss in the book with Deza Malone, a young girl who helped out in Hooverville, the city Bud and his friend stayed in before they caught the train.
Miss Hill was the old librarian Bud was expecting to run into at the library, but instead another woman had replaced her.
I like the use of the Literature cirlces. I had a chance to experience all of the jobs in our circle: the story mapper, the vocabulary finder, the summarizer, and the question writer. The various jobs within the literature circle help you to pay closer attention to the selection while reading. The chance to do all of the jobs give you an opportunity to really focus during the assigned chapter readings where many times some things may go undiscovered when reading alone. I would like to use literature circles in my classroom because it can hold children accountable. There are some children who have not ever been read to and there are many who don't like to read, but if given an interesting book and a job to do, the children can be held accountable. Children do not want to let their peers down. The only way to be able to get through the book, is if that particular person, reads and does their particular job. Literature circles make reading more fun. I had the chance to read "Bud, not Buddy" within my literature cirlce. I felt that this was a good book because of the themes displayed through out the book. These themes...which I will get to in a minute...are enduring themes that can help young children. You could use this book to teach the content areas of Ela/Social Stuides. ELA- becuse you can teach children how to make inferences,and how to analyze a piece of literature. As a teacher, you could use this literary piece to discuss important vocabulary such as theme, plot, character, and setting. You could use this literary piece to teach children how to do a response to Literature...which is a gps standard....(well all of this is gps) and you can also use this type of literature (childrens novel) to do independent reading within the classroom. You could use this piece of literature to teach social studies because it is set durting the Great Depression. It can help the teacher to discuss questions with the class like; what is the great depression? When did it take place? What was life like during that time? What happened to the economy that made them call it the great depression? THese are wonderfule questions to help explore this topic.
I was the theme person in my literature circle. There are many themes throughout this book, but the ones I think are the main themes are those of survival,determination, and maturation. Bud..who is the main character... is a survivor. His mother died but he did not just roll over and die with her. Bud had to grow up quickly because he had no one but himself. He also made up his own rules for survival and having a funner life, while having to grow into a young man quickly(maturation). He was faced with adversity, but he did not give up. He was on an adventure to find out who his father was and nothing was going to stop him. He was determined that he was going to find out who his father was at all costs and nothing was going to get in his way (determination).
Literature circles can be a motivating tool for use in the classroom. They would need to be structured a little differently to make them age appropriate for younger children but I see the possibilities. I would ask one child to talk about the characters, another to about what happens in the book. I would ask one child to describe the place (setting) the characters are, and ask one to tell why they think the story was written and if there is a message in the story or if it is just for fun. We could the make flannel characters to act out the story on a flannelboard or draw and cut out characters and background props.
Gloria Russell- Please add this to my post. Lit. Circle Reflection: Our literature circle helped us to view the book from different insights and helped to open up discussion. Our book, Walk Two Moons,was a heartfelt story about a thirteen year old girl at a very hard crossroad in her life. The heaviness was balanced by humor. I liked the book very much. It could be used in teaching language arts (for its excellent writing), social studies (for cultural and human elements), geography (for the places like Yellowstone Park).
My summary: This book begins with thirteen year old Salamanca Hiddle moving from Bybanks, Kentucky, to Euclid, Ohio. Her mother has left Sal and her father. Sal's father moves them to escape the tangible reminders of Sal's mother all around their farm.
In Euclid, Sal befriends Phoebe Winterbottom. Phoebe's story mirrors Sal's story in many ways and they are intertwined as the book progresses.
Sal's grandparents come to take Sal on a cross-country trip to Idaho, following the route Sal's mother took. They are doing this to help Sal come to terms with the loss of her mother. Along the way Sal tells her grandparents about the misadventures of Phoebe,in which Sal has a part. So we have two stories, the trip and the story Sal is telling.
Phoebe's mother disappears and we have a tale of possible kidnapping, possible murder, a lunatic, and mysterious notes being left on Phoebe's porch. There is also a budding romance or two thrown in the mix. There is soul-searching as Sal goes through all her feelings.
The end of the book finds Sal and her father back in Bybanks. Sal is looking forward to a visit from Phoebe and some of the others from Euclid. Sal and her father are healing.
The Literature Circles were fun. They are a good way to get kids interested in reading while learning to work in a group. I loved our book, Walk Two Moons. It could be used to teach about geography and social studies. There are many references to Native American culture and the American landscape.
PLOT:
The book is set in a suburban neighborhood in Ohio and also throughout the mid-west. The main character, Sal, is on a trip with her grandparents and along the way she tells them a story about her friend Phoebe in Ohio. Sal and her father moved to Ohio from Kentucky after her mother left and never came back. Sal had a difficult time dealing with her mother leaving. Her situation parallels the situation of her new friend Phoebe. As Sal helps her friend cope with her mother leaving, she comes to terms with the loss of her own mother. The story follows Sal on her journey in her mother's footsteps. Sal learns about herself while "walking two moons" in the shoes of her mother and Phoebe. The climax comes at the end when Sal finally, after many obstacles along the way, makes it to her mother's final destination. The book is very moving and I would recommend it to everyone.
THE SETTING:
This was a very good book and I enjoyed reading it. I had never been a part of literature group before taking this class and it was interesting.
The settting of the story Bud, Not Buddy takes place during the Great Depression which takes place 1929 up 1939, for 10 years. It begins in Flint, Michigan with a young african american boy in search of his father after his mom dies. He has adventures that take him Flint, MI that take him to Grand Rapids, MI where he hopes to find his father. Although he only goes from one city to another he meets many people who enhance his lives anf gives him strengths to help hi on his journey. For him to be only 10 years old he has been through more than a person has to endure during a lifetime. While he lives in Flint, he live bounces from and orphanage to being homeless to running awawy to Grand Rapid to live with a man who who beleives is his father
The Setting:
Using this book would be an excellent book to teach a social studiesclass because it is deal with issues have happened in the past. It also could be used in a language art class just as we have used it ourself to show different genre. However, I do believe it would noeed to be taught to maybe 3 to 6 grade class.
I loved literature circles. it was a fun experience I had all of the roles in the literature circles. I liked summerizing the most. In my classroom I think that I would have more roles in the groups. I think that this would be more effective with older ele,entary children. the book that I read was Bud, Not Buddy. it was a great book. the setting was great and Bud is just this smart, adventurous with this free spirit. the story was very sweet and "page turning." I would use this book to teach languge arts, the vocabulary that bud uses is amazing for his age. and I would also use this book in social studies, it helps teach about the jobs people had during the deppression. I could also compare life in the depression to life now.
I am supposed to do thge summary of Bud, Not Buddy.
Chapter 1-4
Bud is an orphan during the deppression. Bud was placed in a home with a family with a 12 year old boy named Todd. while Bud was sleep, Todd shoved a pencil in his nose and they got into a huge fight. when Todd's mother , Mrs. Amos walked in she only believed Todd's story, which was a lie. the Amoses put Bud in the shed out back to sleep in for the night. Todd told him about how dangerous it was in there. Bud was trying to go to sleep in the shed but theere were so many things that scared him in the shed. he thought he saw a vampire bat but it turned out to be a hornets nest and they attacked him. he decided that he would go back to the Amoses house to get revenge on them with their shot gun. he changed his mind and just decided to run away.
Chapter 5-9
Bud ran away and he went to the library that he used to go to when he was younger to find a librarian named Miss Hill.but the library was closed when he went. in the morning after he woke up from sleeping under the christmas tree, he went to the mission to get breakfast. the line was closed but he got an adopted family that let him cut in line with them. after he ate he went back to the library to see miss hill but she had gontten married and moved away. he met up with his freind Bugs and they were goin to hop the next train to Cicago. They went to Hooverville, a small cardboard town for almost homeless people. There he meet Deza Malone. he got his first kiss from her. the train that they were plannin on ridin to Chicago was leaving early. Bud got left behind and he desided to find his father.
Chpter 10-14
Bud started walking in the woods and hge met Lefty Lewis. Lefty Lewis took Bud to his daughter's house to get new clothes and eat. Lefty sent Bud's "father" a telegram telling him he was ok. He met Herman and stated that he was his father. Jimmy, Herman's father decided to let Bud stay and eat dinner with them. they went to the resturant and ate. the met miss Thomas the singer of the group and he started crying at the table because he felt like he belonged.
Chapter 15-19
Bud went to Herman's house and he was supposed to sleep in the room of a "dead" girl. they accept bud into thier family and in the end Bud finds out that Herman is his Grandfather. It was a great ending.
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