The End

Oh woe! I finished the book! I actually finished last Sunday night, when I was babysitting. I just couldn't put the damn thing down! I spend so much time thinking about Liesel and Max, and the fact that all the other people were basically dead. It was devastating to read the section where Death is telling the story of how the families were found, in their beds asleep, or at the ktichen table, unassuming. I was particularly upset by Rudy's death, because I wanted he and Liesel to be the only survivors. It was much more interesting and surprising, though, that the mayor's wife came to rescue Liesel in the end. I never suspected that, and in the back of my mind I actually thought the mayor's wife would die in her library, making that connection to her son in this way.
Although the novel was long, and it was a very complete story about this whole network of people, I was left wanting more when I read the last page. I appreciated Zusak's little epilogue, just so I could be certain that Liesel lived a long and happy life, but what in the world happened to Max? I wanted to hear some story about how the two celebrated holidays and birthdays together. I am just never satisfied, I guess.
I have no real way of communicating in words the effect this book had upon me. I was sad, happy, and down right depressed in some parts. I was interested and engaged throughout the text. There were no parts I skipped over, or thought were boring. For this reason, I am so glad that the novel is slowly replacing "Night" in Jefferson County classrooms, because I can just imagine, as I said before, the rich discussions that could be had with students as they read. There are hundreds of writing assignments that could come from the novel, and projects galore. And, if I partnered up with the History teachers I could even approach the text cross-curricularly. I would just have to work on selling the book to students, because the first look at the sheer number of pages will probably instantly turn them off. That will be the challenge!

The Book Thief II

This novel has had such a profound effect on me, in much the same way as favorites of mine have in the past. I have found myself in a crabby mood when I am not reading, and every second I am not lying in bed or on the couch curled up to read, I am not really happy. I insert myself in the story, as Liesel's only girl friend, and stand on the outside of Munich, waiting for the destruction. I know what is coming, in my heart I can't deny it. I simply don't want face the fact that Rudy, Liesel, Papa, Max, and Mama will come to some horrible end. I told my boyfriend the other day that I don't want the book to be over, because I know I will feel some sense of loss when I shut the back cover for the last time.
I have found that my favorite part of this novel is the way in which it relates to our class; Death narrates how Liesel grows as a reader, a writer, and a person through the reading of books. Some are gifts, some are stolen, some are found...all are special treasures to her. I think when reading the novel one gets a picture of a different kind of reader than we have studied thus far in class; Liesel is someone who beats the odds, learns to read, and holds on to the power it gives her with all that she's got. There are several references to the power one gets from reading a book, the secret relationship one has with the words on the pages, and the way readng can bring families and friends together.
I was doubtful at first that I would ever think of teaching this novel because it is so long, and I am not a history teacher. However, if I ever find a way to integrate this story into my curriculum, and to bridge it with the teaching of World War II in a History course, I think that introducing my students to it could be a wonderful experience. The text will teach compassion, empathy, the realization that horrible things have happened to innocent people more than once in the world, a rich vocabulary and use of metaphor, and beyond that, a good read. I can only imagine the fish bowl discussions we could have, and the dramatic play that would result from the reading of this book. I hope it comes true for me, and for my future students...someday.

The Book Thief

Oh man. I thought FEED was good, but this novel puts it to shame. The story of Liesel and World War II is just a much more intense narrative than FEED ever thought about being. There were some weighty issues in FEED, of course, but nothing that touches the literacy narrative of a growing girl who is just trying to figure out life under Hitler's watchful eye. I would like to share some specific quotations that got my attention, and who have earned a pink, flower-shaped sticky note:

"A DEFINITION NOT FOUND IN THE DICTIONARY. Not leaving:an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children" (37). This is such a simple little insertion but it holds so much weight with me. At that point, I realized just how much Hans Hubermann would come to mean to Liesel. This whole scene is so beautifully written, and it provides a sharp contrast to the otherwise harsh, drab landscape of the story. The juxtaposition was deliberate, and meaningful, which I can appreciate.

"But those were small mysteries compared to the terror of her dreams. At those times, in the enormous mileage of sleep, she had never felt so completely alone" (39). I know these nightmares, as I used to have them when I was in high school. I would get so anxious about having one that I would be terrified to fall asleep. The difference was, I had never witnessed a tragedy in my life more great than my parents getting divorced. I had only had a friend die unexpectedly when I was a 9th grader, and instead of dealing with it like everyone else seemed to, by crying and moping, the mourning and regret came in the form of nightmares. I still have night terrors, little episodes when I feel like I am in extreme danger and I can't wake up, no matter how hard I try. I wonder if Liesel will ever stop having her nightmares, if she can ever find closure on the death of her brother and the loss of her family. I hope so, for her sake, because I know just how much nightmares like that can disrupt your life, and cause you to skew reality.

"THE ONLY THINGS WORSE THAN A BOY WHO HATES YOU. A boy who loves you" (52). I bookmarked this page because when I read it, I remember thinking: "Yes! Finally we get to the adolscence of the novel!" Until this part came, I was having my doubts about this story being entirely appropriate for adolscents because of the narration, and I was worried that I wouldn't get to see inside Liesel's life as a child, turning into a young woman. This section began her real story, and I liked that.

"Rudy understood nothing, and that night was the prelude of things to come" (61). I felt so bad for Rudy! How confusing it must have been to deal with the feelings he was having about Jesse Owens, wanting to be him, and also dealing with the lies your father was dishing out to him. If your only real male father-figure role model tells you that you can think what you want, but you must lie about it to the public, in order to protect yourself and your family, what kind of a lingering message does that send to the child? I am curious and worried to see how Rudy comes out in the end of the story, and Liesel too. How will the kids recover from this sense of repression of the true self? Will they escape? Is there hope for them to heal, and grow into well-rounded adults who aren't afraid to express their feelings? I am doubtful.

"The thought of bed-wetting prodded her, but she was going to read. She was going to read the book. The excitement stood up in her. Visions of a ten-year-old reading genius were set alight. If only it was that easy" (65). I chose to mark this section because it began the tale of Liesel's acquisition of literacy. From this point on, the narrative spend a considerable amount of time showing the ways in which Liesel learns her letters, how they fit together to make words, and eventually how to read. The novel does a great job of showing how reading makes Liesel feel, what is means in her life, and the direction it gives her. This is her reading archive. This is a struggle, but it lit a fire within her, and gave her a desire to better herself. I appreciated that so much, and linked it easily to my African American Lit class.

That is all for now, folks. I have read up to page 149, stealing moments to keep going everytime I have had the chance. I hope to finish this weekend. We shall see!

I already blogged today, but I did that before I read Chapter 4 of Wilhelm. I was so interested in the strategies for pulling in reluctant or "remedial" readers that the chapter really resonated with me. As I said before, I am working in a classroom with these kids, the only difference from Wilhelm's examples is that the kids are ALL reluctant and remedial readers, struggling to get a handle on things like how to say the word "cot" correctly. I started to get a little mad at the program I am working with when I read the chapter because I feel that it teaches such basic skills of phonetics, and doesn't encourage the students to read. I felt the bubbles of injustice started to surface when I read about the research that suggests this type of focus has led kids to hate reading after going through programs like the one with which I am working. Then, however, I remembered the teacher telling me on my first observation day that the program has 7 levels, and can even be beneficial for a proficient reader. The students have literature textbooks that seem to be like anthologies, and they also read aloud on certain days. This isn't the focus, because the teacher's job is to bring all the students up to grade level in reading, but at least there is some reading going on outside of memorization of sounds and words.
I pulled a few things from the chapter out that interested me:
"students must get in the action and setting of the story and begin to participate in a 'story world' before response can occur in other dimensions" (90). This quote made me think that maybe this is the beginning of an answer for fighting the never ending battle with literacy challenges in today's schools. I truly want to help raise the number of students in my classes that actually enjoy reading for pleasure, and I want to do that in ways that are tailored to the students' needs. The use of "highly participatory activities" to encourage reluctant readers, such as dramatic play or storytelling, is something I definitely want to incorporate into my classroom. I also agree that the students need to be built up, in a genuine way, by their peers and teachers. Reluctant and remedial readers always know they have that label, and they hear so many negative things about their about their ability to read, it is no wonder they don't have much gumption to try. I loved it when Wilhelm encouraged his student by telling him that he had used "expert reader strategies" and the kid said that he thought he could actually get good at this stuff. That must have made Wilhelm's heart so full to hear that from a kid who before had no interest in reading beyond the answers needed for a quiz.

Reading Archive

I finished my Reading Archive project this weekend, and I was just thinking about how important it was to complete an exercise like that before going into the classroom as a REAL teacher. Looking at my history as a reader and how that has shaped my life really made me think about how I am going to approach the teaching of reading next Fall. I accidentally read through Chapter 3 in Wilhelm instead of 4, so I got the whole section on the SRI, with which I am familiar, and I really think that is a great way to do this project with students in middle or high school. The evidence Wilhelm shows to support the use of the SRI is astounding; 1/3 of his students revealed things about themselves as readers in a way that surprised and delighted him. I know I would have rather done one that written a five page paper (no offense Sara!) because it would have been fun, and almost more challenging to come up with symbolic ways to demonstrate the sections of the assignment. I am a lover of collage work, and find it almost therapeutic to spend hours digging through stuff until I come up with the best combination of materials, one that fits my vision for the project. I used this approach in my Methods course to complete an SRI recently, and had such a great time doing it that I nearly finished it in one sitting.
I am interested to see what others in the class thought about the project, whether they liked doing it, and whether they made the same sort of connections I did with my teaching. I think it will be beneficial in many ways to have students do something like this because it will allow me to know how to help each student read in a way that allows them to enjoy themselves, and to comprehend, explore, and make connections within the reading. Literacy and the struggle with reading is a huge issue at the High School at which I want to teach, and I am looking forward to learning new ways to help the students I hope to teach in the future. I am already working in a classroom with a teacher who runs a special program for students who are not reading at grade level, and I have seen how much they want to improve already, in the short time I have been there. I catch glimpses of them working very diligently to reach new goals that they have set for themselves, and how disappointed they are when they have to try again. I have helped to test them on their work, to explain new techniques and exercises for moving them to a new level of reading, and it has been so rewarding. It takes a lot of extra energy to boost those kids up, but they really need someone to do that, in the worst way. I think that helping them to self-assess, which is what this Reading Archive project helped me to do, would be a springboard to making those necessary changes in their reading habits.

FEED II

Well, I just finished FEED and I must say that it was compelling, sad, funny at times, and very, very different. I had such a hard time putting it down that I stayed up until 3:30 AM yesterday to finish it. I just had to know what happened to Violet, though I could have easily guessed what I knew was her inevitable fate. I found myself entranced by the idea that this could be real in a couple of generations, and I thought at length about the implications of 75% or more of Americans having a chip installed in their brain that took them away from reading forever. This was an interesting part of the story, and I think it was very strategically added by the writer. By having Violet able to read the "dead languages" and having the other kids like Titus only being able to speak and listen to a spoken language, the author was clearly making a statement on the eventual breakdown of our society if technology continues to progress as rapidly as it has so far. I cannot imagine not growing up reading books; they have saved me from many parts of my life that I would just assume forget, opened my mind to new ways of thinking, and also revealed magical worlds that don't exist in reality. The kids in the book that didn't read were easily bored, jumped from one thing to the next all the time, had no real sense of fulfillment in their lives, and were basically machines. Violet was the most human and she malfunctioned, she died. That is an awfully powerful statement, both political and social.
I also found the little adolescent love story endearing. I earmarked several passages and read them out loud to my significant other because I felt he should hear how sweet and innocent they sounded.
"We went into stores, and we laughed and laughed. It was like she took my hand, or I took her hand, and we ducked through doorways, and together we went to an old place, and it was a new place. We went there holding hands." (89)

"She said, 'I'm a peach.' 'Yeah. You're a peach.' Her father was landing. I couldn't see him through the glare of his windshield. She got out of the car. She kissed me. I said I would see her the next morning. She kept turning and waving as she walked away across the pavement. The spotlights wobbled over the Clouds. The pyramid glowed. I rose up into the sky and turned the feed on to songs about people allowed to get out of the same bed, and to eat breakfast together, two toasts on the very same plate." (107)

The last thing I will mention that struck me was the harshness with which Titus dealt with Violet's death. He was obviously seriously confused about the whole thing, and tried to shut it out for a very long time. I was shocked when he deleted her memories!! I wanted to smack him and tell him that she loved him, and he should keep those in his cache, even if for later when he would wake up and realize he had to deal with her death somehow. I felt, however, that the book did have an effective ending. I am so glad that she didn't just die, and he never did anything to rectify his wrong-doings against her. I wouldn't have believed that, and I would have been dissatisfied with the book entirely if that would have been the ending. I thought the whole scene with her father at the end was necessary, and very realistic; I could see it happening to a poor man who has lost the only thing he has left in his life.
All in all, this was a wonderful experience, reading this book. I want to choose on of his others to read for our Book Club. I think adolescent readers would really love it, and I could see how males in particular would identify with the issues. I don't think it alienates females, though, and I could see some really heated discussions coming up over the main themes of the book. I hope I get the opportunity to teach this book sometime soon.

FEED

OK Sara, I don't know where you got the idea that this book wouldn't be easy to get into and would be hard to read. I couldn't put it down last night! I feel like I am being transported back to the days when I spoke in that language teenagers seem to always speak when I am reading Feed. You know the one where every other word is "like" and there are words used to describe things that you know aren't in the dictionary at all? I have questions, don't get me wrong, but it is fun having some things unanswered when reading because I know that there is something for which to continue reading.
My favorite part thus far in the book has been the whole story revolving around Violet, the wool-wearing strange girl. I haven't gotten that far into it yet, but I absolutely love the way the author sets up the mystery that surrounds Violet's character, and the way the others respond to her in such different, yet very typical ways. The girls are intrigued, yet keep their distance because they are secretly jealous that Violet gets all the attention all of the sudden. The guys hover around her, asking tons of questions and trying to win her affection from the beginning by showing off and telling their own stories.
I see so many adolescent issues at work in the novel, such as teen angst, sexuality, the feeling that you might be the only one in the world who understands you, etc. For that reason, the strangeness of the story doesn't affect me at all. I see this as adolescent literature, simply spun in a futuristic way. The kids still have the same issues with growing up, just on a much grander, more technologically advanced scale. I can't wait to read other people's blogs and see what they think about FEED. I am willing to bet that the vernacular used, if you can call it that, will really bother some people a lot, and will distract them from the core issues at work. Time will tell.

Reading History

When I was trying to decide what three artifacts to bring to class which would represent my history as a reader, I found myself going to the very same bookshelf from which I did my inventory. I scanned the shelves, hoping to be inspired, that something would just leap out at me. It took me a while, but I soon realized that I would choose a book from my early childhood, my adolescence, and from my adulthood, each representing a different preference for reading. The first turned out to be a book written by Audrey and Don Wood, the very same people I spoke about in my reader's history. My Aunt Joann, who responded to my blog, read me those books as a small child, and in this particular book, she has written me a note: "For Kristie, Happy 3rd Birthday, from Aunt Joann." This book has been read so many times that I have it memorized, shared with other children over the years, and I am sure it will one day be shared with my own children. The second book was a "self-help" book by SARK to which I was introduced at age 14 by my teacher and friend, Becky Slagle. She had the "How to Be an Artist" poster hanging in my freshman English classroom, and I borrowed the book from her initially. There are some things that were a bit out of my league, age-wise, but overall, I loved reading the stories about unconventional people having fun with life in ways I never dreamed imaginable. I will never forget how special it made me feel to read that and discuss it privately with my teacher. The third book was the first in the Harry Potter series, because I first became acquainted with them in college. I absolutely fell in love with reading them, and often found myself lost in the words, in the world that J.K. Rowling creates. They helped me escape from post-adolescent hell into the magical world of an ordinary boy with extraordinary powers. I was able to be a child while reading that book, without anyone else being able to say anything about it.
All in all, I must say that I am very happy with my choices, and I am eager to see what others have brought to class today to share. I wonder if everyone brought books, or if some brought more metaphorically representative objects. I wonder if anyone brought the same artifacts as I did, or if they too chose something from the different stages of my life. Only time will tell...