The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie was a phenomenal read. This book hits on absolutely everything and anything that a teenager could go through. I loved how this book was set in Spokane. I think this adds such an authentic element to the book. I personally remember driving through Reardan. I remember driving through this town as a child on my way to a family vacation spot. I love how in this book, we see everything from Junior's point of view. This gives the book a naive and sentimental feel. I think this would personally be a great book to teach. It's a great coming of age novel and I think students would have fun drawing their own comic. This would be a great way to connect kinesthetic learners and visual learners to this unit. Students could draw a comic of their life or any specific event. This way they could be drawing along side of Junior. I think this book would be a great discussion material as well. There are great discussions that could be held about this when it comes to cultural elements. While reading this book, I could not believe that this was one of the most banned books in schools. Yes, it does have some iffy parts, and yes there is cussing and inappropriate references. However, this is told through a teenager's point of view. It's a stream of consciousness type of feel. I feel like everything that is referenced in this book is nothing new to what a 15 year old boy already thinks. I think that there are enough important themes in this book that you could definitely argue it being taught in schools. This book is a great one and one that should be read in everyone's lifetime. Alexie gets across so many themes with coming of age, cultural differences, and change all in an extremely accessible and enjoyable way.

More Than This Book Talk

Overview:
This story focuses around a seventeen year old boy named Seth. The story opens up with Seth drowning. He then wakes up in what appears to be his own personal hell. Throughout the story, Seth struggles to find out what this place is and what it means. Several things seem to be really off. One, Seth actually wakes up in his childhood home in England. Two, Seth is all alone. There is no one around him. Dust covers everything. Looking at it at first glance, this world seems like it’s a weird post-apocalyptic world. Three, whenever Seth thinks of something, it randomly appears. In one part of the book, he thinks it’s weird that there are no animals in this world. As soon as he thinks that, three foxes appear. Dreams also play a vital part in this story. Every time Seth goes to sleep, he dreams extremely realistic dreams that actually happened in his past life. However, Seth suddenly has trouble differentiating his dreams from the reality. He becomes unsure which world he’s actually living in. Seth shows his audience what being alone and struggling with reality can do to a human.

Teaching Ideas:

This text could easily be used when teaching students how to write in an argumentative way or defend their choices. Since this book is extremely open to interpretation, students could argue what they think is actually happening in this book. This text could also be used to teach dystopian literature and themes within dystopian societies. I could envision class discussions on different themes within the book. This text could also be used to show the importance of setting. I think it would be cool for students to draw out a map of this place or what they think one scene of this book would look like.

Rationale:

My eighteen year old sister recommended this text to me. She has a great taste in young adult books and when she started talking about this, she broke out in goosebumps. This was my first time reading it. I think this book is great for juniors and seniors. This would be a great book to recommend to someone who’s in a rut with reading. This book is definitely a page turner and a student could get through it easily. There are elements of this book that deal with suicide, death, kidnapping, and child abuse. While this book does not go into extensive detail, this can definitely be upsetting to read especially with a younger audience.

Obstacles:

Death is prevalent throughout this entire book. The book opens up with Seth’s suicide. Later in this book, it goes into detail about Seth’s drowning. This book can be intense and is filled with Seth cussing at the world he ended up in. I think parents and administrators could see potential issues with it simply looking at the death elements. Much later in the book, there is also a section about child abuse. I think administrators could look at this book and potentially toss it aside because it deals with heavy and dark themes. I do think students could relate to sections in this book. Students could easily relate to Seth’s dreams usually reflect on his struggles through his teenage years and how he felt like an outcast within his family.

Readacide

Readacide by Kelly Gallagher was amazing. I loved reading this book and the insights that came along with this book were extraordinary. Gallagher talks about the "epidemic" plaguing the nation called readacide. Teens are beginning to read less and less and it's showing hugely in schools. One point that Gallagher hits on over and over again is the fact that schools are now taking away novels and replacing them with a worksheet paired with an excerpt from a novel or short story. This is doing nothing. There were so many strategies that Gallagher listed in his book that I want to incorporate into my classroom. For example, SSR. Gallagher talks about the importance of silent reading any book that a student chooses (not one that is academic or for another class). I've always been a huge proponent of students choosing their own book and reading. I know that I will implement SSR in my classroom with no added work or book reports or anything that could discourage a student from reading. Even if it's only for 20 minutes a week, SSR will be part of my curriculum. One of my favorite things from this book was at the very end when Gallagher lists 101 books that his reluctant readers usually love to read. I feel that this is a great resource to give to your students or recommend a book off of this list to encourage reading. I will be using this list and recommending these books in a future class of mine. I also really like Gallagher's idea about how to acquire books for your classroom. Gallagher suggests having your seniors donate one of their favorite books and leaving it as their mark in his classroom. I think this is such a good idea and it's a great way to acquire books that teens actually like. I think the reading epidemic that is happening to teens all over the nation is a very real thing and we as teachers need to be aware of this. I think we as teachers could encourage readacide if we're not careful but I also believe that we are fully capable of curing readicide and encouraging adolescents to love reading again.

I Read It But I Don't Get It

Cris Tovani's book I Read It But I Don't Get It was extremely enjoyable to read. I found myself flying through this book. One of the first things I really appreciated about Tovani was that she was very real within her text. She addressed the needs of students and what to do about reading comprehension among adolescents in an extremely straightforward way. One thing that I took from this book is that confusion is a good thing. I had one high school teacher who wanted us to be confused with the texts we read in class. She made sure that we knew that being confused and being wrong was okay. This continues to be the high school class that I always look back to and will shape my future classroom like. I will definitely be implementing Tovani's strategy in the very beginning of this book which asked students to pick or draw some books that have been important to them in either a positive or negative way. I think by doing this, students begin thinking about their reading history and can reflect back on their reading journey. Tovani also has students make two column notes. One note strategy I really liked was when she talks about having students write down quotes from the book and what they think of this quote. They could either write why it was confusing, why it matters, or if it reminded them of something. I think this is a great strategy to implement into any classroom. This would work great in a low level class or a high level class. I loved all of Tovani's anecdotes about her students. This made the book so much more authentic. I think my favorite story was right at the beginning when one of Tovani's more rough and tough students came to the front of the class and shared his pony book that his grandma had read to him.  I really enjoyed how this book addresses all types of readers. It addresses points with the low level an high level readers and gives strategies that are universal. I definitely have books that I've read that I have hated due to not being able to understand the text. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is one of the first that come to mind. I think if I would have had these strategies and could mark in the text where I was confused or bored, I would have liked the book more. This book gives great ways to get all types of readers to begin to like reading again. I will be keeping this book and referencing back to it often when I feel stuck in the classroom and don't know what to do with those readers that just don't like reading.

Social Justice

I read several articles on social justice in the classroom. I found some interesting ideas in two in particular. In one of my articles, it mentioned how it's so good to know something about each of your students' backgrounds. Even if it's just a little tidbit of information that a student told you once, use that. Incorporate that into your classroom somehow and into your lessons. This article really hit on positive change and what we as teachers can do to promote social justice in our classrooms. It means to create a fair and safe learning environment where students and teachers can make that positive change. This article also talked about how to make our curriculum connect to the outside world. This article had a really good line in it that said: "The classroom walls aren't magical barriers to the realities outside of them. If there's something happening in the news that you can link to your content, do it. Choose something controversial, or ask your students if they have questions regarding anything they have been hearing about" (Edutopia). I completely and wholeheartedly agree with this. I always thought it was somewhat silly when teachers would try to hide or ignore what was going on in the world around us. Just because we're in a classroom, doesn't mean the world around us has suddenly just gone up in flames. This article also mentions how students can be leaders and how being good role models can affect the people around them. I think it's vital to let students take lead at some point in the year. This is so because those students will be able to physically see what they've done and will continue to do. 
Another article I read mentioned that teachers who teach social justice are looking to end the cycle of oppression. Teachers are very aware that oppression exists in the world, but they are looking for ways to lessen this oppression or completely end it in their classroom. This article said it like it is. There is injustice in this world. Some people are more privileged than others and some are completely at a disadvantage. I think if we as teachers recognize this and take this to heart, we will be able to end this cycle of oppression starting in our classrooms. 
I really enjoyed reading both of these articles and they both gave me new perspectives on how to approach social justice in the classroom. 

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/creating-classrooms-for-social-justice-tabitha-dellangelo
https://www.oswego.edu/~prusso1/Russos_what_does_it_mean_to_teach_for_s.htm