Week of November 23rd: Historical and Realistic Fiction

   To start off class this week, our professor read a book to the class called The Relatives Came, which was an example of realistic fiction which is what we focused on in class this week in conjunction with historical fiction. It was a really adorable story about a family who has a large number of relatives come to visit and stay with them, and it was perfect since Thanksgiving is soon.

   After we read that book we started talking about Historical Fiction first. I learned that historical fiction is "broadly defined as a work of fiction set in a time prior to when it was written." You evaluate historical fiction based on whether the writer brings the setting to life, whether the characters behave in a way that is believable given the intended time period, and if the conflicts in the story are plausible. After we discussed that we got into groups and read two books and then analyzed them as historical fiction, and then created a chart. My group read "Oh, What a Thanksgiving," and "Stagecoach Sal." I liked reading the books since, considering they are historical fiction, they gave me background knowledge on things I did not know about before.

   Next we talked about realistic fiction. I learned that realistic fiction is "derived from actual circumstances with a realistic setting and characters who face problems and opportunities that are within range of what is plausible in real life." The criteria for evaluating is basically judging whether or not the characters, settings, and events are plausible. After we talked about realistic fiction, we again broke into groups to analyze a historical fiction book. We read a really intriguing children's book called Ruby May Has Something to Say, and made another chart analyzing it. 

   I loved learning about these two genres, especially historical fiction. I think historical fiction is so fun to read since it is based in actual events. The movie "Titanic" reminds me of what historical fiction is. If the story in that movie was a book I think it would definitely be classified under historical fiction. 

Week of November 16th: Brown Girl Dreaming Lit Circle/ Ch.9 Contemporary Realistic Fiction

   We started class this week by grouping into our literature circle groups and discussing Brown Girl Dreaming and the poetry we wrote as a response to the book. We were each asked to share one of our poems that we had written. I chose a Haiku that I wrote in response to a section of the book about candy cigarettes. I think everyone liked it. I really enjoyed listening to other people's poems. It is fascinating to hear what they personally connected to in the book. That really shows how poetry and literature in general can connect to different people in different ways and levels. Some of us had lighthearted poetry while others had a lot more emotional poetry. It also provided different perspectives on the events that occurred in the story itself.
   The chapter that we had to read for this week was about contemporary realistic fiction. Contemporary realistic fiction presents challenges in a "here-and-now" setting, is derived from actual circumstances with realistic characters and settings who have to solve problems which are based on what is plausible in real life. An example of a contemporary realistic fiction book is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This book has elements, though fictional, that bear a relation to the life we personally know. I read that book series myself in elementary school, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It contained certain fictional elements that kept me intrigued, but was grounded in plausibility so it didn't seem too over the top unrealistic.

   I also learned that there are different categories of contemporary realistic fiction, such as self-discover/growing up, families/family diversity, interpersonal relations, school, sports, and many others. The genre itself works by combining certain elements like plot, setting, theme, character, and point of view. The criteria for evaluating it includes asking yourself if the characters resemble people in our world, if the events are plausible, and is the plot solution believable. 

   Overall, I think contemporary realistic fiction is an interesting genre that could be very valuable.

Week of November 9th: Poetry

   This week in class we talked about poetry and took notes on poetry workshop. I learned that many things encompass the process of a poetry workshop. These things include poet talk, poetry read aloud, poetry mini-lesson, poetry projects, poetry centers, and poetry sharing. To further examine poetry, we discussed how poetry is focused on feelings, often combines sounds and words in unique ways, more than likely uses intense imagery, and usually has a deep meaning or message to it.
   There are also many different types of poetry. Free verse is my personal favorite type of poem to write because there are no restraints or guidelines. You can just say what you want the way you want it. There are also other nice forms of poetry as well though, such as limericks, Haikus, list, cinquain, and narrative. The book that we have been reading at home for class, Brown Girl Dreaming, using free verse poetry to create a story.
   My group in class was assigned with the task of finding a limerick poem. We chose Hickory-Dickory-Dock for ours. Since most people know that poem, it was easy to see how it follows the pattern of a limerick.

  We also looked at the poem "Let America Be America Again" and had to figure out elements to add to the poem to emphasize its meaning, and then record our renditions of the excerpt either on video or audio recording. My group split the poems into parts, recited it with varying numbers of people based on the meaning of the poem, and then added an instrumental patriotic song to the background of it. It was really fun and I enjoyed it. At first I did not really want to do it, but afterwards it was really cool to see how it came together and what you can do with poetry. 

   Overall, I can use the information that I learned in class today on poetry to create my poetry responses to Brown Girl Dreaming. I know now the many different forms of poetry that I can use to create it, and how to find my own meaning in the words. I can analyze the poems in the book to look for different elements that make it a strong poem, and then employ those elements in my own poetic responses. 

Week of November 2nd: Nonfiction Biography, Chapter 11

   To start off the class this week, our professor did a read aloud on a children's book called Bully. It was a cute story with a good lesson. In the book, a bull says mean things to his friends when they ask him to play. The author used wordplay a lot and that made the book funny and interesting. For instance, he would say "chicken!" to the chicken, or "you stink!" to the skunk. When one farm animal calls him out for being a bully, he feels bad and apologizes to the other animals. The book could truly be a valuable asset in a classroom to reinforce in children that bullying is mean.

   We also talked about nonfiction biography in class today, which is also chapter 11 of our textbook. I learned that nonfiction biographies are works that feature the lives of real individuals. They can be partial, complete, or collective. A partial biography is just a snippet or segment of a person's life that is explore in depth. I think I will do a partial biography for my biography picture book of my partner at the end of the semester. I think it will be fun to zoom in on a certain aspect of her life and explore it more. Anyways, a complete biography is just as it sounds: a story of their life from birth to present. A collective biography tells the stories of several different people's lives who have something in common. 

   There are also of course autobiographies and memoirs. Memoirs are much more reflective than autobiographies. I think that I would personally enjoy reading a memoir more than an autobiography because it seems like it would focus more so on more important events and the meaning that they hold to the author. Important elements of biographies include characterization, structure, and visuals. I feel like visuals are one of the most important parts of a biography. Visuals allow readers to connect the person's story to an actual image in their head which will lead to a more memorable reading experience. 

   I think biographies would be a valuable thing for my future classroom library because they will allow my students to learn about true events. I just have to evaluate biographies based on how engaging and believable they are to ensure that my students will find them interesting.

Week of October 26th: Read-Alouds

   The main activity that we did in class this week was our read alouds. We got into groups and then read everyone in the group our selected children's picture books using all of the tools we have learned in class that guide us in having a successful read aloud. The book I chose for my read aloud was called You Are Not Small. 

   I chose my book because I thought that it had a good message for children in it. The theme revolved around the idea of accepting everyone for you they are, and realizing that everyone is unique and different in their own way and that's okay. I chose stopping places as best as I could, but after conducting the read aloud I noticed some other places that might have been better to stop at. It was really insightful to listen and watch the rest of my group do their read alouds. It showed me ways that I could grow and improve my own. 

Week of October 19th: Nonfiction of Inquiry Process/ Elephant Scientist Literature Circle

   This week in class we conducted our third literature circle on the nonfiction book Elephant Scientist. For this literature circle we had to find 5 places within the book that we had wonderings about, and then we had to conduct research to answer our wonderings. Following that we created QR codes through a QR code generator and placed the codes inside the book in the places in the text that we had our wonderings in. I did research on concepts like elephant communication and elephant ritualistic behavior that I read about in the book but wanted to find out even more on.

   In our literature circle groups in class we went around and showed each other what we had discovered in our research. I thought it was really interesting to learn about all the things that other people had inquired about. It was also really cool when we discovered that other people did their a few of their inquiries on the same things as ours.

   I really enjoyed this project because it gave me the opportunity to see different people's perspectives on the book. I think using the QR codes is a very creative use of today's technology, and I can definitely see myself using that type of project with the kids in my future classroom. I think children would enjoy it and get a lot out of it, and it helps children think more critically into what they are reading. 

Week of October 12th: Nonfiction Literature

   This week in class we talked about nonfiction literature. That's also what Chapter 11 in our textbook was about as well. I learned that the purpose of nonfiction literature is to inform. It gives readers a chance to find the answers to questions that they may have, in addition to allowing them to gain experiences that helps build their personal knowledge. Even though nonfiction may appear to be boring, a lot of children actually enjoy reading it.
   My husband is one of those people that really enjoys reading nonfiction. In fact, I don't think that I've ever seen him read a book that was not nonfiction. He loves history and is always eager to learn more about it, so the books that I have caught him reading are often about important figures in our history, and a lot about the world wars. He is proof that there actually are people out there that enjoy reading nonfiction, and thus I realize that I need to have nonfiction books available in my classroom library.
   I also learned that there are broad categories of nonfiction writing. These categories include things such as factual nonfiction and interpretive nonfiction. Factual is more on the "straight fact" side of non-fiction, while interpretive allows the author to indulge the reader in a more of a journey with a little bit more of their interpretation involved.
   One aspect of nonfiction literature that we spent a good deal of class time focusing on this week was a genre of nonfiction called "fictionalized nonfiction." This is a genre that has the purpose to inform, but uses fictional elements throughout the book. It is, in fact, different from historical fiction. I can see how those two genres might be similar, but I think that fictionalized non-fiction would contain more extraordinary elements. In class, we had a debate involving the pros and cons of using fictionalized nonfiction in the classroom as teachers. Both sides had good points. A pro would be that it might interest children more than straight non-fiction would. A con would be that children could have a difficult time distinguishing fact from fiction.
   I decided to look a little bit further and see what books are classified as fictionalized nonfiction, so that I may have a better grasp of the genre. The books below are a few fictionalized nonfiction books that I discovered. They are from a goodreads list of fictionalized nonfiction books. I am not sure if this is truly what fictionalized nonfiction is supposed to be, but it's what I found!