I've been asking my English three students to blog about their reading. In fact, if you are here, then you can see their blogs to the right! -->
I'm feeling rather proud of them! They are risking public reaction (and possible teen-age humiliation) to write their thoughts about their reading choices, and they are getting into it! Our goal is to write every Friday about our reads. We've focused on narrators and the ideas we learn from our reading. We'll keep pondering various parts of our reading choices each week in hopes of improving our writing skills and advertising our reading choices! It's a fun new challenge.
Because I asked them to do this, then I should play along as well, right? It's only fair! The book I'm currently in is called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. It's been on my list for a long while now, and then Mr. Thompson, our theater director, approached me with an exciting opportunity. You see, we may actually collaborate on a piece! His theater kids are preparing a reader's theater production for my class, so my students and I will analyze pieces of the text and give them a response! I'm really excited about the possibilities here.
The book begins with the death of a dog. Christopher, the narrator, finds his neighbor's dog in her front yard dead. He removes the stake protruding from the dog and holds the dog in his arms. At that moment, the owner comes out of her house and immediately assumes Christopher harmed the dog, thus landing him at the police station. He didn't commit this atrocity, and he vows to discovered who did.
What makes this story unique is Christopher. He is autistic, and so he sees the world and reacts to it much differently that most. He avoids physical touch. He struggles to read expressions and emotions. He reacts in sometimes unexpected ways. But he's interesting! And in my experience, he is similar to many, many students I have taught over the years. I hear those kids' voices in my head when I read him. I picture his movements and reactions vividly. I understand him because I have taught him.
I love it when reading reaches into our hearts and memories and deepens our connections to the world. This book
has already accomplished that for me, and I'm not even a third of the way in! I look forward to knowing Christopher more and unravelling this mystery with him. I look forward to my class and Mr. Thompson's class probing this story together. And I look forward to growing as a teacher and human to better server my current and future Christophers.
I'm feeling rather proud of them! They are risking public reaction (and possible teen-age humiliation) to write their thoughts about their reading choices, and they are getting into it! Our goal is to write every Friday about our reads. We've focused on narrators and the ideas we learn from our reading. We'll keep pondering various parts of our reading choices each week in hopes of improving our writing skills and advertising our reading choices! It's a fun new challenge.
Because I asked them to do this, then I should play along as well, right? It's only fair! The book I'm currently in is called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. It's been on my list for a long while now, and then Mr. Thompson, our theater director, approached me with an exciting opportunity. You see, we may actually collaborate on a piece! His theater kids are preparing a reader's theater production for my class, so my students and I will analyze pieces of the text and give them a response! I'm really excited about the possibilities here.
The book begins with the death of a dog. Christopher, the narrator, finds his neighbor's dog in her front yard dead. He removes the stake protruding from the dog and holds the dog in his arms. At that moment, the owner comes out of her house and immediately assumes Christopher harmed the dog, thus landing him at the police station. He didn't commit this atrocity, and he vows to discovered who did.What makes this story unique is Christopher. He is autistic, and so he sees the world and reacts to it much differently that most. He avoids physical touch. He struggles to read expressions and emotions. He reacts in sometimes unexpected ways. But he's interesting! And in my experience, he is similar to many, many students I have taught over the years. I hear those kids' voices in my head when I read him. I picture his movements and reactions vividly. I understand him because I have taught him.
I love it when reading reaches into our hearts and memories and deepens our connections to the world. This book
has already accomplished that for me, and I'm not even a third of the way in! I look forward to knowing Christopher more and unravelling this mystery with him. I look forward to my class and Mr. Thompson's class probing this story together. And I look forward to growing as a teacher and human to better server my current and future Christophers.
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