Global Read Aloud- Out of My Mind

The Global Read Aloud begins on Monday.  Have you gotten your book yet?  Don't worry if not you still have a couple of days.  I just finished the recommended book for 4th grade and up Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper.  I think of all the recommended books for the Global Read Aloud this on was my absolute favorite.  It spoke right to my heart.

Out of My Mind is the story of a 5th grade girl with cerebral palsy.  She is very intelligent but cannot talk or control her body.  The book tells the story of her struggles with trying to fit in with the "normal" kids in her inclusion classroom.  The reader soon finds out that Melody is like any other 5th grader.  She worries about her clothes, what other people think about her and she just wants to paint her nails and tell secrets!  This book has so many wonderful life lessons tied to it that would be great for discussions with the Global Read Aloud.

I wanted to share with you some quotes that I pulled out that could lead to some great discussion among students.  I had many more than just this but I wanted to narrow it down.  I included some possible questions to get students thinking.

"After folks got finished making a list of my problems, they might take time to notice that I have a fairly nice smile and deep dimples- I  think my dimples are cool." pg. 4
        - Why do you think we always notice people's problems first?
        - What can we do to start noticing people's strengths?

"Kids, who for the most part, ignore kids like me." pg. 28
        - Have you ever ignored a kid like Melody?  Why?
        - Have you ever included a kid like Melody? Why?

"To people like Claire and Molly, I say, 'We all have disabilities. What's yours?'" pg. 168
          - Do you have a disability?  What is it?

"Mom nods in agreement. 'I know you're right, but- but... it's just so much harder for Melody.' 'No, it's harder for us.  We have to figure out what's in her head.'" pg. 170
           - What has Melody taught you?

 If I had known about this book when I taught in a 4th and 5th grade full inclusion classroom it would have been number one on my read aloud list. Here is a list of a couple of other books and video clips that are on this same topic.

Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick
Rules by Cynthia Lord
Team Hoyt (goes with the video)

Don't forget to start the Global Read Aloud on Monday.  You can use twitter, skype or blogs to participate.  I cannot wait to hear how you decide to connect with other classroom!

Happy Reading!
Laura

Global Read Aloud

The book recommended for 1st grade and up for the Global Read Aloud project is Marty McGuire by Kate Messner.

Marty McGuire is the story of a girl named Marty who is a bit of a tomboy.  She prefers catching frogs, digging in dirt and pretending to be Jane Goodall.  When she starts 3rd grade her teacher announces that the class will be putting on the play The Frog Prince.  Marty is not too keen on the idea, especially when her teacher asks her to be the princess.  Marty does not do tiaras and frilly dresses.  Marty does not do princesses.  However, despite her unwillingness Marty's mom makes her participate in the play and Marty does her best job acting, "princessy," until her and the boy acting as the prince get an idea.  They decide to switch out the stuffed animal frog for a real, live, frog and encourage improvisation in the play.

I really like this choice for the Global Read Aloud project not just because of the story line but also because the book really leans itself to being cross curricular.  While reading this for Global Read Aloud you could also be hitting on biographies, especially ones about Jane Goodall.  In science you could work on your animal unit (whether it be classification, food chains, anatomy, whatever the life science standards are in your grade).  Lastly, there is a lot of drama specific vocabulary (improve, scenery) so take this opportunity to meet some of the drama standards.

Another reason I like this choice is because it is part of a series.  Kate Messner has written two other books about Marty McGuire so if your class falls in love with Marty you already have your next two read alouds!

Don't forget that the Global Read Aloud starts at the end of THIS month.  Sign up here and be thinking about how you will connect with other classrooms across the globe.  Will you use twitter, skype, a blog?  Let me know your plans!

Happy Reading!
Laura

Stupid Fast Continued

As promised I have gone through the 8th grade common core standards and listed the ones I think Stupid Fast could be used with. Like I said I am not familiar with 8th grade standards but just by looking through them here are the ones I think this book touches on.

Standards

RL.8.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to characters, setting and plot.

- As I mentioned yesterday there are several themes in Stupid Fast.  You could use just one for the students to analyze or they could each pick their own. 

RL.8.3: Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character or provoke a decision.

- There is a lot of dialogue is the book.  Felton even has a lot of inner dialogue that propels action forward.  It would be interesting to analyze his inner dialogue and how it impacts his actions.

You could also use these standards to meet the following writing standard:

W.8.9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection and research
           a. Apply grade 8 Reading Standrads to literature.

There are a lot of tough topics presented in the book Stupid Fast (suicide, puberty, peer groups etc.)  any of these topics could be used to meet almost all of the Speaking and Listening standards through either a debate or a class discussion.  This could be a great way to incorporate the Global Read Aloud project and connect with another class to debate/discuss these issues.

Ideas

I lastly wanted to leave you with some ideas that you could implement in your classroom while reading aloud this book.  A lot of my suggestions came from the book Action Strategies for Deepening Comprehension by Jeffery D. Wilhelm.  This book has great idea for introducing enactments into your classroom.  Through the enactments higher level learning will occur.  Here are a couple I think work well with Stupid Fast. 

Hotseat:  In this enactment a student assumes the role of a character in the book.  The student is given time to tell about him or herself and then answers questions or responds to situations that the rest of the class propose.  In the book Wilhelm suggests that you prepare students to be the "lifeline" of the person in the hot seat and as always he says it is OK to stop the enactment to reflect upon responses and if they are accurate or not.

Who Am I?:  Basically students pick a character from the story.  The begin by acting or miming like the  character then they will move on to speaking like the character.

Character Surveys:  After reading assign each student a character and have them complete a survey.  They have to justify their answers as a the assigned character would.  Here is an example from Wilhelm's book:

1. Love means never having to say you're sorry.
In role as Romeo.  I totally disagree with this statement  Love made me do a lot of things that made me really sorry.  I am dead and so is Juliet.

The explanation goes on but I think that you get the point.

How fun would these enactments be when using technology to connect with another class.

My last idea is for students to use technology to make a book trailer (just like a movie trailer but with a book).  Here is one that a librarian made for Stupid Fast. 

Hope this post helped a little!

Happy Reading!
Laura

Stupid Fast

Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach is the suggested book for grades 8 and above for the Global Read Aloud project.  I do not know a lot about 8th grade and above content but I am going to do my best to summarize the book, suggest some Common Core standards that the book addresses and end with some activities that you could do with other classrooms either through twitter, blogs or Skype.  Today, I will start with the summary.

I would describe Stupid Fast as a coming of age novel.  The main character, Felton Reinstein is going through puberty and he has hit his growth spurt fast.  Before his growth spurt Felton was your average nobody in school.  He lived with his mom and younger brother (his dad had committed suicide when he was 5). Felton only had a couple of friends, was often made fun of and had nicknames like Squirrel Nuts and Rein Stone. Then he became fast, really fast, or as the author might say, stupid fast.  He went out for the track team and really enjoyed running until he got disqualified at regionals.  Then it was summer.  Over the course of the summer Felton grew even more, his best friend left for Venezuela and his mom started going crazy.  Through out the book Felton is learning how to deal with finding out who he is and what he is good at doing.  He is also struggling with his confidence and self-esteem (which any teenager can relate to).  He decides to try out for the football team, mostly so he can get out of the house away from his mom and brother and also meets a girl.

As Felton beings working out, making friends and getting faster Felton's mom is getting crazier and crazier.  She will not buy groceries, clean the house or even get out of bed.  Felton wants to hide this from everyone because he is finally making friends and becoming likable.  To cope with all the issues going on in his head he begins running, and this is where he truly comes to peace with himself and what is going on, until his mom tells him something that makes him hit rock bottom.  Lucky for Felton he has friends and family that love and support him during this hard time.

This is a great book to read aloud for 8th grade and above because it is written in first person and Felton has great voice.  You really catch onto his personality and his quirks because Herbach does such a great job developing him.  Also, the themes are abundant in this book.  Everything from you won't be happy until you find what makes you happy to themes around friends and family.  It would be interesting to see what 8th graders pick out as themes of this novel.  Be aware, there is some offensive language in this book so if that is a problem in your classroom you might want to steer away from this novel.

Mostly, because I didn't want the post to be too long I am going to stop with just the summary today.  Tomorrow, check out what standards can be taught using this book.

Have a great Friday and Happy Reading!
Laura

Eric Carle

As promised I wanted to talk a little bit about an Eric Carle book study that could go along with the Global Read Aloud.

Last year I used Eric Carle for an author study in my first grade classroom.  I had two goals for this author study.  One was to share different books from an author already were so familiar with (who doesn't know The Very Hungry Caterpillar?).  The second goal was to use Eric Carle as an example of a writer and see what author crafts he used in his books.

During the author study we sometimes just read some of the author's books aloud for fun and other times we read aloud the author's books to chart what we noticed about his writing.  I do not have a picture of the actual chart but it looked something like this:

Under the side that says title we would of course write the title, but I would also include a picture of the book (I am a firm believer of using visuals for all learners but especially primary learners).  Under the side that says What we noticed, we would record what we saw Eric Carle do as a writer in that particular book.  In the first book that we shared I had to do a lot of modeling and thinking aloud, but eventually they got the hang of it and were able to come up with their own "notices."

Now, onto the books that we shared.  The good thing about Eric Carle is that he has written a TON of books and they are in EVERY library so they are accessible (click his name above for a link to his website.)

Some of my classes favorites from last year were the ones that followed a circular pattern.  I have listed them below:

Little Cloud: 

The Grouchy Ladybug:

The Very Lonely Firefly:

The great thing about an author study is that it can be done in whatever way works best for your class.  I can say that my class loved listen to his book and discussing them with one another.  How fun would it be to find another class participating in the Global Read Aloud and Skype with them while completing the anchor chart or even tweet them your "notices."  

I hope you find a way to incorporate an Eric Carle book study into your classroom and join in the Global Read Aloud.

Happy Reading!

Laura

Global Read Aloud

Today I am not going to share a particular book to read aloud but something else.  Have you heard of the Global Read Aloud project?  The Global Read Aloud project is a way to read aloud to your class and discuss the book with other students across the country and even world.

In today's classrooms we need to find more and more ways to use technology to connect our students to one another and the Global Read Aloud project is a great way to start if you are not already experimenting with technology.

It is really simple.  Go to www.globalreadaloud.com and sign up.  Then you need to start reading the book that over 58,000 people are going to share with their class or own children.  There are 4 different levels of books that you can choose from depending on your grade level.  The books are

Kindergarten and up: Eric Carle book study

First grade and up: Marty McGuire by Kate Messner

Fourth grade and up: Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

Eighth grade and up: Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach

After you have decided what book to read aloud to your group of children wait until September 30 to being reading to your children.  Then it is up to you how you want to connect with other educators or parents participating in this event.  

You could simply have your class tweet a response to the read aloud using the hashtag #GRA13.  You could find another class to skype with and discuss the read aloud.  Whatever it is you want to do.  Get as involved as you want.  

I encourage you to use this as a way to make the read aloud time in your class even more exciting and interactive.  It may even hook a couple more kids into loving reading. 

I will be posting about the Global Read Aloud books over the next couple of weeks.  I know how busy people can get so if you don't have time to read the books and decide which is best check back for my synopsis of each of the books. 

Happy Reading!

Laura