Annotated Bibliographies!

     I really enjoy reading and to be honest, creating an annotated bibliography was kind of fun: I was able to think about the books I read and try to imagine a way to use them in my classroom to help my students enjoy the books as much as I did and relate them to our studies in meaningful ways.  What I was not prepared for was how much work it actually took for me to finish a thirty book bibliography, I am pretty sure I spent at least 10 hours writing the bibliography and I couldn't even begin to guess how many hours I spent reading for this projects, I know I read well over 40 books in an effort to find thirty that made ideas and connections spring to mind for my classroom. 
     I hope to be teaching soon, I know having this project at hand will be a big asset for me in planning and I intend to continue adding more books to it as I discover them, except the books I add from this point forward will be more geared towards the subject I am teaching or books for my classroom library that I think students will really enjoy.  In regards to the second part, I think maybe I will make an annotated bibliography that includes all the books in my classroom library with a section for extension/application that students could use for sharing the book with the class.  If you are interested in reading my annotated bibliography, please click this link Mr. Balasco's Annotated Bibliography. 

Book trailers

    I thought I would explore making book trailers with iMovie.  It is actually a very easy project and seems like it could be a lot of fun in the classroom.  Students could create these trailers to introduce books as a prelude to a book report and is a great integration point for technology.
    This would be a great project for teaching 5th grade language arts and falls nicely into Florida Sunshine State Standards

• LA. 5.6.4.1 select and use appropriate available technologies to enhance communication and achieve a purpose, in this case a video presentation.
• LA 5.6.4.2 determine and use the appropriate digital tools for publishing and presenting a topic.

     Students could use programs such as word, iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or Photostory to create a video style trailer that introduces a book to classmates and gains interest.  I think I would have students do this in conjunction with another activity such as a video book report, storyboard, or another project to demonstrate knowledge and familiarity of the book itself in more detail.  I personally found making this trailer enjoyable and engaging, I am still fairly new to Mac computers, so it was both educational and experimental as I toyed with iMovie to create a trailer for The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and I will most likely utilize this trailer as an introduction for the book as part of my language arts curriculum when I am teaching.

      Enjoy the trailer!

Poetry Response - Don't Bump the Glump!

  

   Poetry is one of those things that I forgot about as I grew older; English Literature courses kind of beat my enjoyment of poetic prose out of me.  As a child I loved poetry, it was fun and imaginative.  By the time those English Lit courses rolled around, poetry was painful and just another exercise in dissecting and extrapolating meaning from someone else's ramblings.  I recently read Don't Bump the Glump and Other Fantasies by Shel Silverstein, other Silverstein collections had been some of my favorites as a child, especially Where the Sidewalk ends and A Light in the Attic, so when I saw this one I thought I would give it a quick read.  Through this book I rediscovered the magic of fun and nonsensical poetry and begin to think about it from a teacher's perspective.  Silverstein creates a smooth rhythm with the poems in this collection. He relies heavily on rhyme and magical nonsensical fantasy creatures which he weaves into a very vivid mental image that expands the imagination and vocabulary, most of the words he uses are real words that can be deciphered by context and discussion by students.  The rhythm and rhyme he uses also allows for an almost pneumonic feel, I can easily envision using fun and imaginative poetry such as his to create an example of funs ways my students could remember facts about different animals and plants we would learn about in my science class. 

Reading Response "And Tango Makes Three"

     This assignment required me to choose a book mentioned in this week’s reading of Joys of Children’s Literature by Denise Johnson.  The reading discussed multicultural literature and the diverse perspectives found in it.  I chose to read And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell because it was listed under the perspectives for alternate family structures, which is a topic I find both pertinent and interesting in regards to the shape of education today.

 My Response:

     I was really surprised when I found the book and began reading; given the title I expected a book about adoption.  I guess it is about adoption in a sense, but it really represents same-sex parents, which is becoming more common in our society.  I found the story to be enjoyable and it did a great job of paralleling same-sex parents to traditional parents.  I had never really thought much about it, but after reading this story I have found myself examining where I stand and what I have experienced.  Personally, I find no reasons to be against gay or lesbians couples; my opinion is that everyone should be able to be with the person that makes them happy and supports their needs.  I have witnessed several instances of harassment in regards to this topic, which I believe are based in religion and/or fear of something different.  I guess I understand why some people are so outwardly against it, but I believe those people need to take time and understand that different does not mean bad.  The story of Tango is a true story that occurred in the Central Park Zoo and illustrates the fact that even animals want a mate that feels right to them.  This story drew direct correlations to how each of the penguin families interacted together, including Roy and Silos with their daughter.  Just like the male/female partners, Roy and Silos successfully raise Tango to be well adapted and teach her all the same skills that other penguins learn as she becomes a contributing member of the penguin society at the zoo,

     I think books such as And Tango Makes Three shed an important light, especially if a student is in a situation where he or she has same-sex parents or other students exhibit strong negative feelings towards this topic.  Society as a whole still offers a lot of negativity towards this subject and a child could easily become the target of bullying from other students or even a teacher.  Books such as this one can help everyone see that a child in this situation is just as valuable as everyone else and does not need or deserve to be ostracized, there is nothing to fear and acceptance provides a better opportunity for everyone to thrive and grow.

Hansel and Gretel Stories

Comparison of Hansel and Gretel and Baba Yaga

 

Title	Characters	Setting	Actions	Theme
Hansel and Gretel by the Grimm Brothers (1812) can be viewed here	Hansel, Gretel, Woodcutter, Stepmother, Witch.	Great Forest	In this tale, the stepmother coerces the father, against his better judgment, to abandon the children in the woods so she doesn’t have to share food with them. Hansel and Gretel, hungry and alone, stumble across little house made of gingerbread and cakes and start eating it.  An old woman comes out of the house and sees them eating it and invites them in and feeds them and gives them a comfortable place to sleep.  The old woman was really a witch pretending to be kind to lure them in so she could eat them.  She locked Hansel in a cage and made Gretel a servant. Hansel was fed great meals in an attempt to fatten him up for the witch’s dinner, but Hansel tricked her into believing he was not getting fat.  After four weeks, the witch grew impatient and decided to eat both of them, she told Gretel to climb in the oven to see if it was hot enough, but Gretel played dumb and asked the witch to show her how to check the temperature.  When the witch stuck her head in, Gretel pushed her in and locked the door, then freed Hansel from his cage.  They searched the witch’s house and found chests of jewels and filled their pockets before leaving the little house.  When they return home to their father, he is overjoyed to have them home and the stepmother has mysteriously died.  With their newfound wealth, the three of them live in perfect happiness.	This story revolves around two children who are abandoned at the behest of their stepmother.  Gender roles also are quite poignant in this story with Hansel being the clever one and Gretel being very emotional.  Even when caught by the witch, Hansel is the prize and is caged and fed good food, while Gretel is turned into a servant and served scraps.  In this version of the story, The stepmother is again the evil character who creates the plot and in the end it is the father who most loves the children and is rewarded by their return with all the jewels.  The theme for this version seems to revolve around rewards for cleverness and love as well as the don’t trust strangers angle.  An interesting note is that the evil stepmother seems to mysteriously disappear at the same time as the witch is killed opening the possibility that they are one and the same.
Baba Yaga by Blumenthal, V.X.K. (1903) can be viewed here.	Father, Stepmother, Boy, Girl, Grandmother, Baba Yaga, the mice, black cat, birch tree.	A forest somewhere in Russia.	In this version, the stepmother sends the children to Baba Yaga, a witch who lives in the forest and eats children but the children are able to escape with the help of some talking mice, a talking black cat, a talking tree and some magical items given to them by the cat.  Upon returning home to their father and telling him what happened, he sent the wicked stepmother away and never neglected the children again.	In this story the father, a peasant who remarries to bring order back into his house, appears innocent and is trying to recreate a nuclear family environment in which the woman takes care of the house and kids. The stepmother and Baba Yaga, the witch, are painted as the evil protagonists to the children, who overcome the evil by being good and kind.  The story presents a couple of interesting themes: (1) A good person will eventually win, (2) The male is ultimately the most important figure in a child’s life while the woman that went against her husband was banished. (3) Don’t trust strangers.

 

            The Grimm version (1812) is a German fairy tale that reflects the culture of the time through the Father’s job as a woodcutter and in the names of the children, Hansel and Gretel.  It also revolves around food and hunger, which is a common concern throughout the world, but during the early 1800s, there appeared to be a great famine that swept across Europe and lending a strong connection to the story.  In the case of Baba Yaga (1903), The father is a peasant on the edge of a forest in Russia, which depicts a very common state of being for the region.  Names are not given to any except for Baba Yaga, the etiology of which seems to derive from the Russian babushka (grandmother) and ved’ma (pronounced with a ‘y’ sound), which means witch, so we have the grandmother witch.  Baba Yaga, also relies heavily on magic and imagination, which was very prominent in the poor areas of Russia in the early 1900s.

            Both versions of the story depict some commonality and play on universal themes.  In each case there is a brother and sister who are abandoned by a loving father at the behest of a second wife and cross paths with a cannibalistic witch.  In the end, good triumphs over evil and the children return to their loving father and the evil stepmother is punished.  Each story includes very common fears for children throughout the world in the shape of starvation and evil witches, while at the same time reinforcing the idea that bad things happen when you trust a stranger.

Begin at the beginning...

Summer is here and I am starting the next semester of the education program at FGCU.  This semester I have Children's Lit, Literary Content & Processes, and Social Science Methods so I will be keeping this blog to detail my experiences with literature.  Looking forward to the semester and of course, being one step closer to graduation.  I am dealing with the week one overwhelmed feeling, hopefully I will get everything under control and on a schedule by next week and will have a chance to enjoy Memorial Day.  That's all for now, but I will be updating soon.