Author Profile

E.B. White is famous for his book Charlotte's Web. It is my all time favorite book in the world. Most of he books can be taught to upper elementary level students such as 4th and 5th graders. White was known for his crisp, graceful, relaxed style. White's stories ranged from satire to children's fiction. Many of his books have been made into movies that people of all ages enjoy, like Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web. Once reading a E.B. White book you will never forget it.

Author Profile

Although R.L. Stein may not be able to be taught in a educational manner in the classroom, he is an excellent author to introduce to children to read for fun. His stories are entertaining and keep children questioning what will happen next. This will help them with developing their pattern for reading outside the classroom. Stein is famous for his Goosebumps series. His website is all so entertaining, he a very talented author. Visit his website at http://www.scholastic.com/goosebumps/

Audrey Wood has written several books. She sometimes writes with her husband Don Woods. They also have picture books. Their website has an interactive page for children to copy coloring pages, play games, and cut and paste activities. It also has a link for parents and teachers that help them with questions they may have or activites they can share with their kids. This author also has picture books. Visit thier webiste. http://www.audreywood.com/mac_site/clubhouse/clubhouse_page/clubhouse.htm

Author Profile

Robert Munsch has an interesting website. His books are intended for the younger elementary students and has excellent lesson plans that can go along with reading his books. He began writing and making up stories when he worked at a daycare when he was younger. Poetry is also one os his favorite things to write as well. Munsch's website is fun and interactive. He visits schools and libraries and reads his stories to kids all over the country. My favorite book by him is called Love You Forever. If you're a mother you will not be able to read this book and not cry.

Author Profile

F. Scott Fitzgerald was an American author of short stories and novels. He is known as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. His stories were all connected with Jazz Age of the 20's. Fitzgearld's work of the book The Great Gastby was astonishing. It is an amazing story that can be taught to the upper level students and can entwined with many great lesson plans like Meeting of the Minds with famous people from the 1920's.

Author Profile

Cynthia Rylant is an American children's author that has written more than 100 books in English and Spanish. Her works include fiction, non-fiction and poetry. She has recieved numerous awards. She had a rough childhood and turned to writing stories and drawing pictures as her way to get away from it all. Visit this website to learn more about her life http://www.orrt.org/rylant/

Author Profile

JuanitaHavill is a distinguised author that tells a simple stories that's sure to resonate with younger siblings and older ones alike. Some of Havill's most popular books are about a young girl named Jamaica. The idea for Jamaica came to Havill while watching a little girl playing in the park. She remembers thinking, "There's something about that girl that I want to put in a story." There are now several books in the Jamaica series. Jamaica Tag-Along by Juanita Havill is an excellent book by an amazing that can be taught to K-2nd grade. It can used for Guided Reading for kindergartners.The pictures in the book are done with watercolors and give a realistic depiction of the little girl, her family, and their multiethnic urban neighborhood. To learn more about Juanita Havill visit her website http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Jamaica-Tag-Along/Juanita-Havill/e/9780395549490/?pwb=1&

Author Profile

Elizabeth O. Dulemba is a children's book author and illustrator. At a young age she has been a talented artist and it was through her art that her writing came later on in life. Many of Dulemba's books have been translated into spanish; these are ex excellent books to choose from when working with bilingual students.
Here is her websitehttp://dulemba.com/index.html

Author Profile

Lois Lowry is an award winning author who has written many children books. My favorite book that she has written is Number the Stars, she won her first Newbery Award with this book. This book can taught at the third or even fourth grade level. This a perfect book to use when teaching about the Holocaust. There are many different activities you can incorporte into the lesson plans with this book alone.

But, Lowry is a distinguished children's author and there are many other great books that she has written over time and would be excellent to read to children. Visit her website and see all the amazing books she has written. http://www.loislowry.com/books.html

Presentations

All the presentations were excellent. I learned alot about differnt genres and books that I have never read, but now are on my to read list. You can immediately tell that each group put alot of time and effort into their projects. My group and met a couple of times and just had fun with it. Every presentation was different, but were very interesting.

Chapter 10

Read alouds can be enjoyed by students from every grade level, because who does not like to be read to? I as a college student loved doing the read alouds in class with everybody. But it is important that when conducting a read aloud engage your students in thinking and text to text connections. It is important to do a book walk first before beginning the read aloud because this will give students a chance to look at the cover, think about what they think the book will be about and discuss the title. They can ask questions about words they are unfamiliar or maybe instantly make a connection with another text by the cover of the story. The video we saw in class was extremely useful and was a perfect example on how a read aloud should work. Having elbow partners to discuss differnet aspects and contents of the book is a perfect idea. I plan to implment this in my own classroom when conducting a read aloud.

Guided Reading

Guided Reading helps studentst to become independent readers and writers. It is how teachers teach the little tricksa and trades on how to make reading easier and less of a pain for students to do. It should be done in small groups with students who have the same reading strategies. You should not want to put a student who is on a higher level of reading with a student who is below level because it was bore and frustrate the student with the higher level and possible lower the self esteem of the person with the lower level in reading. Teachers should also provide guidance as they help thier students use what they know to understand the text. You should also be very particular when selecting a text for guided reading because it shold support the student's use of their skills and know that they should be able to read 90% of the text. A good thing to do after guided reading is to have a writers or readers workshop where they can ask questions and you make sure the students understood what they just read. This should help engage students to become good and independent readers.

Chapter 9

Nonfiction is everywhere and amazes me how it is not only a biography or resource book. Nonfiction or factual materials are used in our everyday lives like articles in a newspaper, a manual, a cookbook, a map and the Internet. Without even knowing it you read nonfiction materials all the time. Teaching to students can be completely beneficial to them because they will become more enthusiastic about the reading content especially in science and social studies. Nonfiction literature draws readers in it with the use of imagination and rhythmic language.
This chapter gave excellent examples of different activites to us in Nonfiction. My favorite one was Meeting of the Minds. Although, in class our classmates were unable to share with us who they were, I can definitely see how it would play out with students in a classroom and how excited they might become learning about different famous people from one another.

Chapter 8 Blog

This chapter was about the Elements of Fiction. There are many different types of fiction, but the one that comes to mind all the time is Sci-Fi and I have never really been a fan of that until now. I have always been a fan of the Romance novels and hated stories about animals talking or vampires roaming the world. It was not until recently that I fell in love with Stephanie Meyer's Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. Vampire stories always seemed lamed to me and unreal that I never took the chance to sit down and read one, until I got great reviews about how Meyer's books are more than vampires, and dungeons, but of a love story with a twist. The character's seem like normal teenagers who fall in love but have many obstacles to over come. I think of Edward and Bella as the Romeo and Juliet of the vampire world, only Bella is not a vampire but an aspiring one! My advice is if you have yet to read the series do it now, before seeing the movies because like all good books the movies are no where near as good as the book.

Chapter 7 Blog

This chapter was about the use of art in literature through picture books. I did not know that picture books were just a form and not a genre of their own, just for the simple fact that there are so many of them. Picture books are always fun to use in the classroom because you can get more out of a story with the pictures alone. While using picture books you can also incorporate some some sort of art lesson to teach them how art is us in the process of making a story come to life. I for one never knew that there were so many forms of ways to illustrate a book. Sometimes the illustrator is not given enough credit for their work efforts in making a book a reality with their art.
My favorite thing to do as a child was to make up my story for the picture books that I had. I knew the stories that were already in them, but I loved to make my own one. It's amazing on how one can change up a story line because they may get a different perspective of a picture. Students of all ages love picture books and you can try to incorporate picture books in your lesson plans for students of all ages, because us as adults were completely amazed by all the picture books we bought into class and read aloud to one another.

Chapter 6 Blog

Chapter 6 was about Traditional Literature. I never really realized it till now but the stories are all so very predictive. In the fairytale it's a known fact that good always prevails over evil and the good guy always gets the girl. But that still does not shy away from the fact they they are awesome to read to little kids. It's funny because now a days many students will catch on and say they already knew what was going to happen in the end because all the stories they read have the same ending, in one way or another.
I really like fractured fairy because it gives you a glance and the same story but from a different point of view. Students would love to hear these stories because it was really grasp their attention and get them to start thinking of all the stories they've ever read and how they could be told from a different angle. The villain does not always have to be the bad guy or the princess does not always have to be the nice girl, it is an excellent way to teach kids that things are not always as they seem. I like how this chapter gives us examples on how we can incorporate traditional and fractured fairytales in a fun and creative way to our future students.

Maya Angelo Video

I absolutely love poetry and Maya Angelo happens to be one of my all time favorite poets. When I first discovered her in the 9th grade I was reading "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" and I was just completely taken back by her way with words. I was searching for a good book to read at the time and I was just Googling different authors and at the time I was studying poetry in school so I looked up "famous poets" and Maya Angelo was one of the first to come up. I checked the book out of the public library and fell completely in love with it. It hit me on a personal level because I too had a similar situation like her in my childhood and at the time was beginning to come to terms with what happend to me and looking for an way to deal with it. I was somewhat of a survival kit for me because when I felt sad I would turn to Maya Angelo for inspiration to go deal with the difficult situation I had to deal with had a young age. If you have not yet read the book my only advice is that it is a must to read!
Watching the video and seeing Maya Angelo reciting her poetry was just so exciting. She is a phenomenal woman and poet!

Chapter 4 Blog

Chapter 4 talks about how to teach students that when reading to try and make a personal connection. It's easier for them to grasp the an understanding of what the story is trying to say. I love to read and this concept of making a personal connection always helps me get a better understanding of what the author is trying to make me visualize. More than often I catch myself trying to place myself in the characters shoes, or try and visualize the setting so I get a sense in my head of the story. It's good to show the book cover to the students and ask them if anything on the cover seems familiar because then they can get an idea in their head ahead of time of what is going to happen or make an educated guess on what may happen. It's hard now a days to find kids who like to read for aesthetics. Many kids probably do not like to read for the simple fact that they do not make a personal connection with the book and do not understand what is going on.
This chapter also gives out excellent examples on how to help students enjoy reading with read alouds, storytelling, puppets and art. Hopefully with some these examples it will be easier for students to understand the text.

Chapter 3- TR 3321

Teaching literature will not be the easiest thing to do, but it is very important in the learning process. We will probably find that students will be eager about because either they are not well readers or they are not interested in the literature that is given to them. When choosing a book to read it is important that we play close attention to what our students are interested in so we can choose a book that will easily grasp their attention and make them want to read. Ofcourse not all the children will have the same interest so it will be important to keep reading material that all students can relate to. Encourge the students to read for aesthetics. It will not be an easy task, but literture should be made fun and taught with enthusiasm. After reading a book, have a discussion where everyone can express how they felt or how they were able to relate to the text.

Chapter 2- TR 3321

Culture is a big deal in our society, and I think as teacher's we should be aware and educated on the different cultures that are out there. As a parent and a teacher I would not want my child to be treated any different than another child from another race. When teaching a lesson I think we should take into account of all the different cultures and backgrounds we have in our classroom and incorporate them into our plans. While teaching, it would great to learn as well from our students. When we show are students enthusiasm they are more likely to want to learn and be interested in what we have to say as educators. Show and tell would be an excellent way for our students to be able to share their culture with the rest of the class. They could bring something from home just tell a story. Although it is important that we do not pressure other cultures on students, but it will probably be beneficial to and help them understand where the other students are coming from.

This discussion was very beneficial and I took a great deal away with me from it.

Sorry my blogs.

Interesting Children Literature Authors

I have surfed the web and was able to find different children literature author's that interested me. Feel free to check out their websites and see if any the authors interest you.

http://www.gailgibbons.com/
This author/illustrator in particular writes books that help teach children understand everyday things they may come across. As many of you know children are always asking the famous question, "Why?" and Gibbons helps early readers understand a wide range of topics from seeds to plants, tornadoes, trucks and reasons for the season. Her website also has a free guide for teachers about activities when using her books in the classroom.

http://www.donnajonapoli.com/
Donna Jo Napoli writings range from children picture to young adult novels. Some of her books aimed toward helping Deaf people read. She also writes mathematical and science tales that help motivate children's interest in those particular subjects. As a author who's audience is school aged children, she loves to interact with her readers and enjoys going to schools and meeting with the kids, teachers, and administrators.

http://www.andygriffiths.com.au/
This author should be in a category on his own because he takes children's literature to a whole other level with his humor and groteque antics, that children would find amusing. Griffith knows what interests children and how to gain their attention while reading. His writings have said to be like a child's free spirit. He has taken Shakespeare's Macbeth and turned it into a comedy that a child can easliy understand. As future teacher's I know we are all going to struggle with getting children interested in literature and with the help of Griffith who was once an English teacher, we can help gain the attenion of children and their interest in reading.