Writing with Weetzie

 Respond to the article (but more broadly to the question of how YA literature might support writing instruction) on your blog. It's fine to use the bullet point method that we used before. I would love to see you use the article as a springboard for your own thinking/ideas about YA and writing.

• Students could write their own capturing first line of a novel
• Give creative choices in writing prompts about novels
• Mentor texts as a way of exposing writers to a variety of forms
• Speak as a mentor text for writing in vignettes (Monroe,2005, p.50)
• Students could write from different points of view using a mentor text 
• Young adult literature speaks to students about issues they care about (Monroe, 2005, p. 54)
• Analyzing the author's message to the audience can help students understand how to write for specific audiences in their own writing
• Mentor texts with a first person narrator can inspire voice in our students
• First person narrator mentor texts: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

References

Monroe, M. L. (2005). Writing with Weetzie: Using Young Adult Literature in the Composition Classroom. Language Arts Journal of Michigan, 21(2)

Week 6

This is a bulletin board idea that I could use in my future classroom. I used the list prompts given for this week to create a twitter feed. I would like to have my students names on the board as usernames for twitter and have them contribute to board as a hashtag.

Reading Ladder week 5

Realistic fiction to unexpected perspectives 10^th grade

                                                 One Half From the Eastby Nadia Hashimi

I have chosen this novel as the top of the ladder, because this novel requires students to read from a completely new perspective. This novel follows a character from Afghanistan.

                                               

                                                All American Boysby Jason Reynolds

                                                This novel is narrated by 2 different perspectives of a politically and racially charged event. This novel could be considered realistic fiction and unexpected perspectives because one narrator is black and the other narrator is white. 

                                    

                                               Prisoner B-3087 Alan Gratz

Alan Gratz’s novel Prisoner B-3087 would be a novel that could give students a perspective of a student their age growing up as a Jewish person in the 1930’s. My students would be able to get a better understanding of this time in history and what it meant for children their age

                                    Speak by Laurie Halsey

                                    Speak is a realistic fiction novel about a young adult that was sexually assaulted the Summer before school starts. This novel would challenge my students to discuss real issues such as mental health, bullying, and sexual assault. 

                                    

                                                Far From the Treeby Robin Benway

Far from the tree is a realistic fiction novel that follows 3 young adults that were given away by their birth mother. This is an easy read that appeals to a female and male audience. This novel could fit into both categories so I chose this as a baseline for the ladder.

YA LIT WEEK 4

After reading this week’s practitioner readings written by Jennifer Buehler I found the following points to be helpful as I move further into teaching. 

1. Understanding the importance of young adult novels as a way of “drawing students out into the larger world” (Buehler,2016,p. 2)

2. Understanding that reading can build a community for our students. The author of this weeks readings, Jennifer Buehler states, “I read to find myself in books, take on the perspectives of others, explore new topics, appreciate beautiful language, develop critical perspectives on the world around me, and connect with fellow readers” (Buehler,2016,p.3). 

3. Understanding that school reading can and has been restrictive in the past, but by offering choice, providing the materials, and encouraging exploration teachers can break through that pattern. 

4.  Understanding that relevance is important in engaging our students to read. Stocking our classroom libraries with novels that are relatable, take risks, and blur genres will light a reading fire in our students (Buehler,2016,p.27). 

5. Understanding that reading still needs to be taught even in the secondary education field. Students need to be exposed to diverse perspectives in young adult literature in order to think critically about the themes being discussed.

References

Buehler, J. (2016). Teaching reading with YA literature: Complex texts, complex lives. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.