Doors In Our Lives #exploringidentity

Last week I shared how I'll be using Jason Mamoa's short film Canvas of My Life to introduce identity webs to my students with Sara Ahmed's lesson from Being The Change. I'm also going to use the film to introduce the idea of symbolism and then segue into think about people, places, and experiences that have shaped us. I'm planning to do picture book book-a-day and have picked out books with doors in them so we can discuss what doors represent and then share doors that have been significant in our lives. 

Thank You, Omu!

Door,

Doors In The Air

Wherever You Go

Knock Knock

Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns

*not pictured: Journey

Why doors exactly? 

Because of this guy: Alan Benchoam.

Here I am with Alan Benchoam in his gallery in Guatemala.

When I was in Guatemala in June, I met a photographer named Alan Benchoam who takes photos of doors. You can find more information about him at Doors of The World. He also creates collages with all the doors and as I was looking at his art, I realized how amazing doors are. There are doors we go through, doors that open, doors that close, doors that take us to different places. Doors hold a lot of meaning. I love the symbolism but also that doors are a universal experience.

The picture books I shared above all have doors in them, whether the door is a focus of the book or just embedded in the story at some point. My goal is to read the books to give students an opportunity to think of doors in different ways as they choose a door they would like to write about. Students will be asked to take a picture of a door of their choice and to write about it. Then we'll share the photos they took and their writing. I'd love to display these but haven't worked through the details of what this would look like. Maybe I'll get the kids' input and go from there!

Of course, I believe in writing along with the students so when I was in Guatemala and had this idea of taking pictures of doors and writing about them, I snapped pictures of two doors that meant a lot to me while I was there. Being a writer myself is imperative as a teacher of writing but sharing myself is equally as important. I'll share both of these pictures, talk through my ideas, and model writing about a door that is significant to me. (I'll be sure to share my writing and how this goes with students!)

While I was in Guatemala, I stayed with my cousin Andrea and her family and this is the door to their house. It looks like a simple brown door but when I look at it, I feel the love that welcomed me on the other side of it. I think of her, her husband, and her three kids. I think of the stories we shared and the memories we made while I was there. We played hide and seek and Chinese jump rope, they were fascinated by my bedtime routine, and they ordered a vegan pineapple upside down cake for my birthday celebration are some of my favorites.

This is the door to K'Ashem, my cousin Edgar's adventure tourism agency in Guatemala. When I look at this door, I feel excitement. Going on an excursion with him was the highlight of my trip to Guatemala. I loved getting to see him in his element and to experience Guatemala with him. I'm such an outdoorsy, adventurous person and so is he so when I look at this door, I think of him and am reminded to live life to the fullest.

My goal is to take time for students to write about something in their life and share it as we get to know each other but then work on a shared art project based of off the Jason Mamoa video...I promise I'll share more about that next!

Guys Read: The Sports Pages

Title: Guys Read: The Sports Pages     
Edited By: Jon Scieszka
Illustrator: Dan Santat
Publisher: Walden Pond Press  
Publication Date: July 10th, 2012   
Genre/Format: Sports Fiction/Short Stories 
GoodReads Summary:  Ten stories guaranteed to put you in the ring, under the basket, and right behind home plate, from the following perennial all-stars: Dustin Brown, James Brown, Joseph Bruchac, Chris Crutcher, Tim Green, Dan Gutman, Gordon Korman, Chris Rylander, Anne Ursu, Jacqueline Woodson
What Jen Thinks: I live with a PE teacher (my husband) so I was excited to get the opportunity to read and review Guys Read: The Sports Pages! In our house, we love football and basketball but my husband stays up to date on everything sports. I was excited to see the stories covered a range of sports and included different genres. I also liked that there are stories from current athletes as well as those who played before, who students may not recognize. 
It really doesn't matter what sport the stories are about, if you love sports, I think you will enjoy this book. Really, at the heart of sports stories is the main character. Whether the character is real or fictional, a player or a spectator, he or she has something unique to share about the commitment, the determination, and motivation, and the sheer love of the game. 
As I read, I found myself thinking about one of my students who loves to play hockey. Even though hockey is his passion, I think he would enjoy all of these stories. Last school year, this student wrote about what it feels like to get hit into the boards in a hockey game. We used Gary Schmidt's book Okay For Now as a mentor text and looked at how Schmidt stops a moment in time and explodes it with description. I can see how these stories would have been perfect mentor texts for this particular student who loves sports.
What Kellee Thinks:  I love baseball, so when The Sports Pages' first story was one by Don Gutman about baseball that cracked me up so much that I ran to the other room to tell my husband about it - the book had won me over. Realistically, like most short story collections, I found stories I really enjoyed and others I enjoyed less. Personally, I liked the baseball stories the most because I am a fan where others will like the football stories. Either way, this book has a bit of something for almost all sports lovers: tennis, hockey, basketball, baseball, football, and MMA.

As a teacher, I love short story collections because they can easily be used for read alouds or mentor texts. This particular collection has such a wide mix of texts.  Though I specifically feel that the pieces nonfiction are the best pieces in the collection to use as exemplar texts and each memoir piece is formatted differently- one more of an interview (with Dustin Brown), one more of a humorous narrative (by Don Gutman) and one a personal narrative (by James Brown). I will definitely be purchasing this book because it will be loved (and because the ARC is missing Chris Crutcher's story and I HAVE to read it!). 
Read Together:  Grades 3 to 8
Read Alone:  Grades 4 to 9
Read With:  Guys Read series edited by Jon Sciezska, Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher, Football Genius (series) by Tim Green, sports fiction novels by Mike Lupica, Tim Green, John H. Ritter, Carl Deuker, or John Feinstein
Snatch of Text:  "So what can we learn from all this? 
Nothing! What, you thought there was going to be some kind of moral or lessons in this book? Forget about it. It's just sports. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And sometimes you lose for eighty-six years in a row." (Dan Gutman, pg. 16) 

"My parents were right: focusing on getting the best possible education truly has provided me with the foundation to have enjoyed much more in life that I could have ever dreamed. 
Thanks, Mom and Dad." (James Brown, p. 160)
Mentor Text For: Memoirs, Personal Narrative
Writing Prompts: Write about a time in your life when you wanted something so badly - whether it's about being great at a sport or something else - and how determination felt to you.
Topics Covered: Sports - Baseball, Tennis, Football, Hockey, Mixed Martial Arts, Basketball; Identity, Rivalry, Competition, Humor, Bullying, Reflection, Revenge, Motivation, Friendship

Jen and Kellee *heart* It:

**Thank you so much to Walden Pond Press for giving us a copy of Guys Read: The Sports Pages to review and for providing copies of each of the Guys Read books for the giveaway!**

The giveaway is now closed! The winner will be announced on Monday, July 16th!

and

House Held Up By Trees

Title: House Held Up By Trees 
Author: Ted Kooser 
Illustrator: Jon Klassen
Publisher: Candlewick 
Publication Date: March 2012 
Genre/Format: Fantasy/Poetry/Picture Book 
GoodReads Summary: When the house was new, not a single tree remained on its perfect lawn to give shade from the sun. The children in the house trailed the scent of wild trees to neighboring lots, where thick bushes offered up secret places to play. When the children grew up and moved away, their father, alone in the house, continued his battle against blowing seeds, plucking out sprouting trees. Until one day the father, too, moved away, and as the empty house began its decline, the trees began their approach. At once wistful and exhilarating, this lovely, lyrical story evokes the inexorable passage of time - and the awe-inspiring power of nature to lift us up. 
What I Think: I first read this book at NCTE in November at the Candlewick booth - I was drawn to it because it is illustrated, in case you can't tell, by my illustrator, Jon Klassen. I fell in love with it then and have waited since to own my own copy. Now that I do own my own copy, it's one of those books that I can't help but hug before I read and then, as I read, I inevitably find myself running my fingers over its pages.

Earlier in the week, I reviewed Step Gently Out by Helen Frost and remarked on how well the text coordinates with the photographs and how together they put the reader into a state of almost meditative awe. This book does the exact same thing for me. It's magical. It lulled me with its whispers of beautiful text and its stunning, yet sage, illustrations. This book is a wise gentleman who taps the empty space on the bench next to him and announces that the reader will sit and be still while he tells his story.

I have read and read and read this book over and over and over. It's a nice story about people, young and old, growing up and moving on. It's a story about how things change - in ten years, in twenty years, in fifty years - things change. Change is a constant, and yet, there are some things we can always count on. As much as we try, there are just some things we cannot have power over. Most of all, as things do change and we become more technologically advanced, the amazing power of nature remains  ever wondrous.

I e-mailed one of my favorite English teachers (Hi, Lana!) to tell her how I think this book would be a great partner with Ray Bradbury's short story There Will Come Soft Rains. I vividly remember reading Bradury's short story when I was in middle school and being utterly confused. Confused to the point of being borderline irritated with the story. (I am not a fan of not being able to understand things.) When one of my students was in Lana's class last year, he was asked to read the text and I remember inwardly groaning as I recognized the story. With some extra background knowledge of Ray Bradbury and the mentality at the time the story was written, I was able to appreciate the story more. I do have to say that there is a lot of inferring that goes on in order to read that story, though. After a few rereads of House Held Up By Trees,  I can see how the message is similar to Bradbury's point in There Will Come Soft Rains - at least, in the way that I interpret it! I can see how reading Kooser's picture book first would help put students in the right frame of mind to set them up to read Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rains. (I almost want to say that you could go ahead just forego the short story and read this book instead...but I do see the value of sharing Bradbury's work...even though I'm not sure my middle-school-self would agree.)
Read Together: Grades 5 - 12 
Read Alone: Grades 7 -12 
Read With: Step Gently Out by Helen Frost and Rick Lieder, There Will Come Soft Rains (short story) by Ray Bradbury, Grandpa Green by Lane Smith, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
Snatch of Text:

"When it was new, the house stood alone on a bare square of earth."

  

"The sweet smell of the little green flowers floated around him 

as he worked, but he was too busy to notice."

Reading Strategies to Practice: Making Connections - Text to World,  
Writing Strategies to Practice: Metaphors, Descriptive, Tone, Mood, Theme
Writing Prompts: Write about something that is different for kids today from when you were younger. Interview a parent, grandparent, or other adult. Ask about how things were different for them when they were growing up compared to kids growing up today - record their answers and write a response to what you learned or realized from listening to their stories.  
Topics Covered: Change, Determination, Nature, Childhood, Growing Up 

Jen *hearts* It:

Stitches

Title: Stitches
Author and Illustrator: David Small
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Publication Date: September, 2009
Genre/Format: Memoir/Graphic Novel
GoodReads Summary: One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had cancer and was expected to die. 

In Stitches, Small, the award-winning children’s illustrator and author, re-creates this terrifying event in a life story that might have been imagined by Kafka. As the images painfully tumble out, one by one, we gain a ringside seat at a gothic family drama where David—a highly anxious yet supremely talented child—all too often became the unwitting object of his parents’ buried frustration and rage. 

Believing that they were trying to do their best, David’s parents did just the reverse. Edward Small, a Detroit physician, who vented his own anger by hitting a punching bag, was convinced that he could cure his young son’s respiratory problems with heavy doses of radiation, possibly causing David’s cancer. Elizabeth, David’s mother, tyrannically stingy and excessively scolding, ran the Small household under a cone of silence where emotions, especially her own, were hidden. 

Depicting this coming-of-age story with dazzling, kaleidoscopic images that turn nightmare into fairy tale, Small tells us of his journey from sickly child to cancer patient, to the troubled teen whose risky decision to run away from home at sixteen—with nothing more than the dream of becoming an artist—will resonate as the ultimate survival statement. 

A silent movie masquerading as a book, Stitches renders a broken world suddenly seamless and beautiful again. 
What Jen Thinks:  I read Stitches before seeing David Small speak at the Anderson's Children's Literature Breakfast in February. After reading this book, I listened to him speak with a completely different perspective. I marveled at his ability to talk in the first place, and that he has become, what seems to me, a really nice man. It is amazing to think of all that he went through as a child. His drawings really brought his childhood to life for me. Only recently, after reading so many books, have I really started to visualize what is happening when I read a book. I know some people who are able to visualize everything clearly but for me it's doesn't come naturally. This book speaks to the power of a graphic novel to tell a story with the drawings. I will definitely use this with high school students to demonstrate how a format can be any genre. It still seems rare for a graphic novel to be nonfiction - even though I know there are plenty non-fiction graphic novels out there. This book seems much more poignant because it is an memoir that belongs to the illustrator and the story is so haunting.
What Kellee Thinks: This is one of the hardest books I've ever read. I thought that a graphic novel about such a dark topic would be easier than a standard book, but I think it was actually the opposite.  The illustrations added another level to the intensity of the story. It is a haunting novel dealing with resilience against abuse, cancer and insanity.
Read Together: Grades 9 - 12
Read Alone: Grades 9 - 12
Read With: A Long Way Home by Ishmael Beah, Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
Snatch of Text: 

Mentor Text for: Making Inferences, Asking Questions, Making Connections, Personal Narrative, Memoir, Tone, Mood
Writing Prompts: Write about a time in your life when you felt frustrated with another person. How did you deal with the situation. Write about a time in your life when you felt overwhelmed. 
Topics Covered: Cancer, Child Abuse, Insanity

Jen and Kellee *heart* it

and

Knucklehead

Title: Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Mostly True Stories of Growing up Scieszka Author: Jon Scieszka
Publisher: Viking
Publication Date: 2005, 2008
Genre/Format: Autobiography/Nonfiction/Novel
Summary: Jon Scieszka shares stories from his childhood growing up with his parents and five brothers. Stories range from brotherly antics to Catholic school.

What I Think: All of the stories in this collection were very entertaining - but some were downright hysterical. I read this as my husband and I sipped drinks at a local coffee shop. He was working away on his iPad and I was reading, until I would start laughing so intensely that I had to hand him the book to read while I found a tissue to wipe the tears that were streaming down my face. Even he got a good chuckle out of the stories I showed him.
I think kids, boys especially, are just going to love reading about Jon Scieszka's antics when he was a kiddo. Obviously, he grew up in a different time, but there are some stories about being brothers that stand the test of time. I love the Jon Scieszka is out there writing awesome books for kids and now this book gives some insight into his life growing up and who he is as a person.
Read Together: 3 - 12
Read Alone: 4 - 12
Read With: Boy by Roald Dahl, Guys Write for Guys Read: Boys' Favorite Authors Write About Being Boys and Guys Read: Funny Business by Jon Scieszka and others
Snatch of Text: "For a while to make it easier to keep our clothes straight, my mom also tried color coding us. Jim was blue. Blue shirts, blue pants, blue socks. I was brown.
I really grew to hate brown. Even today, forty years later, I still avoid brown clothes." (p. 21)

"That's what my mom used to tell me and Jim -
'Watch your brothers.'
So we did.
We watched Jeff roll of the couch.
We watched Brian dig in the plants and eat the dirt.
We watched Gregg lift up the lid on the toilet and splash around in water." (p. 35)
Reading Strategies to Practice: Activating Background Knowledge, Making Connections, Visualizing
Writing Strategies to Practice: Personal Narrative, Descriptive
Writing Prompts: Write your own short story or personal narrative of a funny story from your childhood. Describe the silliest thing you did when you were little - what were you wearing?, what did you sound like?, what did you look like?, what did you smell like!? Interview your parents or grandparents and ask what fun stories they remember from their childhood, then write the story for them.
Topics Covered: Family, Brothers, Private School, Growing Up, Responsibility, Humor,
Translated to Spanish: No

If you've read Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing up Scieszka, I would love to hear which story was your favorite! Did it have you holding your stomach from all the laughing, or what?

Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children's Books

Title: EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED FROM A CHILDREN'S BOOK    
Author: Various - edicted by Anita Silvey
Publication Date: 2009  
Genre/Format: Nonfiction/Collection of Essays  
Summary: A collection of essays from over 100 leaders from the arts, sciences, politics, business, and other fields.  They each talk about the impact a children's book has had on their lives.  It includes a picture and excerpt from each book highlighted.
What I Think: I was really excited to get this book, and just a teeny tad disappointed.  There are a good deal of people I recognize in this book, but at the same time, a lot of people who I don't even know at all.  I'm glad books were influential to them, but I didn't know who they were so it was hard for me to get excited about reading about their experience with books.  There were a lot of authors I recognized and it was fun to read about a children's book that touched their lives.  There were quite a few books I didn't expect people to connect with, lots of classics.  I think I would use this with older students more than younger students.  Overall, it was interesting to see what people said.  

I took away 4 overall trends that I kept noticing as I read - 

1. Many essays discussed a memory of a person reading to them or with them.

2. Many essays talked about being immersed in books, that they grew up with books all around them.

3. Each essay identified one book that was a "home run" book to them, a book that just stands out as one that really got them into reading.

4. Many essays pointed out that their either loved the book because they could connect with it or that it was so different from their life it helped them experience something completely novel.   

Read Together: 6 - 8  

Read Alone: 7 - 8  

Read With: Choose one of the famous figures from the book and do a more intense study of him or her and use this as part of learning about him or her; Choose other memoirs and match them up with a few from this book to discuss memoirs.

Snatch of Text: Lucy Mangan, British Journalist, wrote, "Children should be encouraged to read anything and everything because you never know what they will get out of a book." p. 203

     Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook: Sixth Edition (which I loooooove), wrote, "Until The Call of the Wild, I'd always been aware I was reading a book; that is, I'd yet to be "lost" in one.  Jack London gave me my first dose of "virtual reality" decades before the phrase was coined...I discovered that the experience wasn't peculiar at all, that nearly all lifetime readers experience it with a singular book at some point.  Fadiman explained that such a book is like one's first big kiss or first home run - they're unforgettable, and we spend the rest of our lives trying to duplicate or surpass them."  p. 57

Reading Strategies to Practice: Making Connections, Just-Right Books

Writing Strategies to Practice: Personal Narrative, Memoir

Writing Prompts: Write about your favorite book of all time.  Write about a memory of reading a book from your childhood.  Write about your "home run" book.      

Topics Covered: Reading, Just-Right Books, Genres  

Translated to Spanish: No