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Positive – A MUST Read

Posted on September 14, 2014 by auburnchick

I love to follow authors on Twitter.

No, I am not a stalker.

I might be a bit of a fangirl.

Ahem.

One of the authors I follow is Jay Asher.

This man writes hysterical Tweets.

If you’re not familiar with him, you MUST acquaint yourself.  He wrote the much-acclaimed Thirteen Reasons Why, which my students cannot put down.

A couple of weeks ago, he tweeted a shout-out to Paige Rawl, author of the book Positive.  After reading a summary of it on Amazon, I immediately ordered it and began reading it the day it arrived in the mail.

First of all, Jay Asher’s foreword for the book is incredibly touching.  This man is gifted, let me tell you.

Then, it was time to read Ms. Rawl’s words.

Oh my gosh.

This book.

Its message.

Oh word.

Positive is an autobiography that describes Paige Rawl’s young life…her struggles…as a young woman born with the HIV virus.

She is candid about her dad’s death from complications from the virus.  There is a picture in the book of the last time she saw her father the day he passed away.

I cried and had to put the book down.

It was deeply moving.

This book will shock you when you read the details of the bullying she endured after she innocently told her best friend that she had HIV.

You will be angry when you read about the injustice she suffered by the very people who should have been her advocates.

This is a story that every single teenager should read.  I’m telling all of my friends about it.  Adults should read it too.

I plan on reading this book to my students as our Read Aloud after I finish the book I’m currently reading.

I know we will have a lot of meaningful discussions about misconceptions about the virus, bullying, and empathy.

I am planning on having my students do some research.  I’m praying for other ideas to incorporate into my classroom as we read this.

It’s that good.

I tweeted out to this young lady after I finished, and she RESPONDED!!

I might have mentioned that I could be a fangirl.

😀

Buy the book.

Share it with a friend.

You won’t regret it.

Filed under: Books | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Still Plugging Along

Posted on September 13, 2014 by auburnchick

I am still here, everyone.

Like most teachers this school year, I am completely overwhelmed by a new test I don’t know a lot about but am trying to prepare my students for, new mandates from local and state education officials, and the new-to-me personalities of my classes.

Molly is getting tired of my lonnnnnnggggggg days.  She and I try to spend quality time together each morning while I’m getting ready for work…

I’m busting my tail (literally and figuratively…see below) to come up with engaging activities for my students.  I borrowed an idea from another reading teacher for a Text Features foldable and made a template for it.  My students are very particular about lining things up so their work doesn’t get messy, so I thought a template would make things easier…

I spent Friday afternoon and late evening grading and finished up when I got up today…

Then, I spent another nine hours creating my lesson plans for the week…

Yes, you do see football going on the TV behind my computer.  Please don’t ask me for a play-by-play.  I couldn’t give you one if I tried, except for the Florida/Kentucky nail-biter.  I was too focused on my lesson plans.

I am still a S-L-O-W lesson planner.  I know I make things harder by creating a Smartboard file to accompany each week’s lessons, but that weekly file helps me see things from my students’ perspective.  Plus, I export the files as pdf files and email them to my parents on Fridays (or Saturdays, depending on when I get the chance to do it).

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m taking on more of a leadership role at school.  I attended my first leadership meeting this past week and walked away with this book…

It’s one of those “teacher” books.

Let’s just say that I’m about to learn a LOT about PLCs (Professional Learning Communities).  Thank heavens I watched a lengthy video on teachingchannel.org and have a good friend who worked at a school where she helped create common assessments for her department.  I have a somewhat elementary knowledge of this new-to-me collaboration and have much more to learn.

Despite my crazy life, I did manage to finish a YA book this week…

This book has been around a while.  It was published in 1971 and tells the incredibly sad story of a young woman who struggled with drug addiction and mental illness.  She wrote this diary, although her name is omitted from the book and cover.

It’s very raw and unlike anything I’ve ever read.  Many of my students have, surprisingly, read it already, and one spoiled the ending for me.  Grrr.

Speaking of books…I received my first order of the year…

I peeked at Tupac’s book of poetry.  It.  Is.  Amazing.  What a talented young man.  His early departure from this world is a tragic loss.  I am going to read and discuss his poems with my students.  It’s part of my plan to have my students love me forever.  😀

I also created a new incentive to encourage good behavior.  I stole this idea from a teacher at a different school.  To earn five minutes of free time at the end of my ninety-minute block, tables must avoid getting three Xs for behavior THEY listed on the poster you see below.  A couple of years ago, I had picked up the magnetic white boards you see.  Because I don’t have a large white board in my room to keep tallies on, I thought the small ones were perfect!  Tables who earn three Xs have to spend the five-minutes of free time writing me paragraphs that explains their behavior choices and their plans to rectify them in the future.  🙂

I managed to do a few things non-teaching related.  I started a new project…

…and finished it…

Ready, Set, Ruffles with Red Heart Sashay yarn

I also fought symptoms of a fractured tailbone…

I’m pretty sure I broke it when I caught major air on a steep slide that Rooster and I went down on Labor Day.  I’ve been suffering for nearly two weeks and was in a LOT of pain the end of this week…worse than right after I did it.

Meanwhile…we had a pretty rough storm today.  I thought it was your average thunderstorm…until I walked outside to let the dogs go potty…

The pictures don’t really depict how LARGE those branches are!  The one on the left came off of the tree below.  If you look closely, you can see where it snapped off.

Oh, and I’ve been having fun ordering dresses from ShopHopes.com.

Check out this one…a new favorite, I think…

That’s about all I’ve got for now.  My fingers are crossed that I’ll be able to do more planning at work so I can indulge in activities that will help me maintain more balance.

Ahhhh…who am I kidding?  I give up my brain and all of my energy from August through May.  To think otherwise is to delude myself.  😀

Filed under: Books, Knitting, Teaching | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Getting Them Hooked on Reading

Posted on August 26, 2014 by auburnchick

Mondays are not always fun…can we all just agree?

They mark the end of relaxing weekends and the beginnings of long, tiring weeks…especially when you are a teacher!

That is why I was pleasantly surprised when my Monday went swimmingly yesterday.

Although we’ve been in school a week now, I had yet to get my students reading.

Oh, they were starting to get excited, mind you, looking at the books on my bookshelves, but I’d held them back so we could review procedures and get to know one another better through various activities.

Yesterday was finally the day, though…the day when we did our Read Around.  You might know this as a book pass.

I filled five baskets with books, and students had a minute and a half to two minutes to preview the books in the basket.

I had given each student a copy of a Read Around form from the book, Igniting a Passion to Read, by Steven Layne…a reproducible he provides in the book.

I had instructed my students NOT to keep any books for the independent reading we would be starting today.  They were simply to preview, list the titles of any books that interested them, and when the time was up, pass the baskets around to other tables.

Now, I must be doing something different because ALL of my classes got very excited as they began previewing books.

I don’t know if they had been skimming from the enthusiasm I’d been showing since Day 1 for the various books around my room.

It could have been that as I walked around and provided bits and pieces of various plots, gleaned from personally reading the books, they grew even more enthusiastic.

MANY begged to be allowed to check out books, but I had to hold them back.

I had to have enough of my better books to share with ALL of my classes.

So the first two classes reluctantly agreed.

Then, my sixth period came in, and Lord Have Mercy, but you would have thought that Christmas had arrived.

I could not keep myself from being pulled in, so I spontaneously announced that I would allow them to check books out.

I explained that as my last class of the day, they would probably find themselves getting what was left over from book chats I’d be doing throughout the year.

To make up for that, I let them have first dibs on my books.

They.

Went.

To.

Town.

I have a new procedure this year where I have a checkout binder in the back of my room.  It is divided by class periods, and students can fill out the form to let me know which books they have and when they checked them out.

I have often found myself unable to locate certain books, uncertain which students are reading them.

My sixth period class could not get a hold of the binder quick enough, and it made the rounds from one table to the next with quite a few of the eighteen students checking out books to take home and read…

Many of my Allison van Diepen and Jennifer Brown books got checked out.

My name will be mud with my second and fourth period classes.

In fact, one young lady had pitched a fit earlier in the day because she insisted that she HAD to read Thousand Words.

I was so nervous about the yelling she was sure to do that I stopped by Books a Million to buy another copy of the book.

Unfortunately, my store had a crappy supply of Brown’s books…

There was ONE freaking copy of her newest book, which I refuse to pay $18 for.  I’ll wait for the paperback.

There were a few copies of Hate List on a display, but this was not the book my students were fighting over.

I’m peeved at the sucky supply (do you like my alliteration?), and I made a suggestion to the cashier that they would probably be inundated with young ladies looking for these books, and that the store needed to put them in stock.

*Ahem*

I did pick up a couple of books on the clearance shelf…

My teacher discount allowed me to get these books for under $5.

I’m hoping I can coax my students to try some different authors like Jay Asher, John Green, and Neal Shusterman.

I have a feeling that, unlike previous years, I won’t have to beg my students to read during their silent reading time each day.

I’m excited just knowing what we are all in store for!!

Filed under: Books, Teaching | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Dear Jennifer Brown

Posted on August 4, 2014 by auburnchick

Dear Jennifer Brown,

I just finished reading Perfect Escape, the third of a set of your books I brought home from my classroom.  I had already read Hate List over a year ago.

I want to thank you for writing books that take on challenging topics.

Do you write dystopian novels filled with plagues and zombies?

Nope.

Do you write stories filled with government conspiracies?

Nope.

You create characters with honest-to-goodness believable problems that each and every reader can relate to.

Your characters could be our friends, family members, or people on the news.

You’re not afraid to embroil your characters in real-world issues such as bullying, sexting, dating violence, cheating, and mental illness.

Your characters come to life in their raw musings, sometimes aloud but often in their heads.

They think what we think, and they aren’t afraid to think them.

They finally lose their cool and explode, saying out loud what we often don’t have the courage to say.

In doing so, this frees us up from the guilt of shame…shame for feeling the way we do…because someone else feels the same way.

Thank you for writing books that my high school students relate to.

I’ve seen them cry over your books and have, personally, cried over the books as well.

I’ve been told, by a student, that she got in trouble at home…for READING TOO MUCH.

I thank you for this, for she was reading one of the books pictured above.

Now, I’m not going to fault those who write about zombies and the apocalypse.  There’s an audience for those books.  I’m part of that audience, because I enjoy reading a variety of books so I can knowledgeably pair them up with my students’ interests.

But…

Your books hit home with my students…especially the female ones…in a way that other books do not.

Many do not have mamas at home they can confide in or, in true teenage fashion, do not feel comfortable talking to.

Your voice, through your characters, tells my students that it’s okay to feel angst and shame over what some might downplay as typical teenage stuff.

Thank you for not trivializing the issues.

You’ve played a large role in helping me create engage readers…hopefully life-long readers.

Your friend and fangirl,

Nathalie

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The Beauty of Imperfection

Posted on August 3, 2014 by auburnchick

I’m currently about two-thirds of the way through Perfect Escape by one of my favorite young adult writers, Jennifer Brown.

This book tells the story of Kendra, a high school senior, who whisks her brother, Grayson, away on a road trip.

It’s no ordinary road trip, though, because Kendra is running away from trouble at school.

She tries to justify the trip in her mind by claiming that she’s on a mission to help her brother, who is mentally ill because of his OCD.

One of the things Grayson does when he’s under stress is to line up rocks and count them.

Rocks are his fascination, and I was struck by a comment he made to Rena, a young mom who joins in on their road trip.

She asks Grayson why a particular piece of quartz is colorless while other pieces have various colors.

He explains that pure quartz is colorless, and that is is chemical imperfections that leads to quartz becoming colored.

Then he says, “Quartz is at its most beautiful when it’s been changed by impurities.”

Go ahead and re-read it.  I bolded it because it’s a very poignant statement.

I had to pause in my reading, so I’m not sure how the author is going to use this statement of his.

I sure can see deep meaning in this sentence.

The first thing I thought about was my students.

They are certainly not perfect (none of us are).

Their lives are dirtied up by terribly dysfunctional home lives, terrible personal choices, and temptations to make more poor decisions.

These are the students who walk into my classroom.

These are the things that make them beautiful in my eyes.

These are my favorites precisely because of their imperfections.

I find even deeper meaning in Grayson’s words, though, by thinking about our lives as sinners.

Boy are we imperfect, aren’t we?

In God’s eyes, though, we are beautiful and worthy of His love.

He sent Jesus, His Son, to die for imperfect beings.

How humbling is that?!

I think back to when the Mr. proposed to me and gave me my engagement ring.

I was in college and enrolled in a science class that had a lab.  One lab day, we had to work with the microscopes, and I put my ring beneath the viewer.  We marveled because the diamond was nearly flawless.

I wonder how many people purposely select diamonds with flaws?

Not many.  There’s an entire rating scale devoted to a diamond’s qualities, and big sales are made over the best gems.

When you look at Grayson’s statement again, you notice that he says that quartz is beautiful because it’s been changed by imperfections.

If you think about it, our imperfections make us who we are.  They add color to our lives.

What an interesting concept and such a neat way of looking at and accepting my own imperfections…something that’s very tough for a perfectionist like myself.

I am beautiful…

Because of my imperfections.

Filed under: Books, Christian | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

In Their Words – Part 6

Posted on June 30, 2014 by auburnchick

This is the last of these posts…finally!!!!!

I do hope you’ve enjoyed looking at the books that inspired struggling readers.  I promise that if MY students liked them, ANYONE would like them.  Teachers in my department almost have to stand on our heads to cajole our kids to read.

The keys are personal enthusiasm from someone who can vouch, from experience, that a book is good, a great author, short chapters (practical but necessary), and encouragement to stick with a book, even during a boring chapter.

On to the projects!

This was a very short book and an easy read for my student…a gifted football player who was easily distracted by thoughts of college football. The fact that he finished this book and looked for more in this book series made me happy. I have a picture of him working, side-by-side with a young lady, on this project, truly engaged in what he was doing. I love this young man to bits and his amazingly supportive mama, and I cannot wait to see him in the NFL draft one day. I’m also going to be waiting for my shout-out, which he’s promised to give me. 🙂

This is still a popular series with some of my students!! They really enjoy comparing the books to the movies, and we have good discussions about which ones are better!

The third or fourth project I’ve posted for this book. It was so popular, and I enjoyed looking at the projects and the various ways that students interpreted the book!

This is another book that is popular with the young men I teach. I really want to read it too! The gentleman who completed this project HATED to read, bless his heart. He did enjoy this book though.

This series…so popular with my 6th/7th period block…all because of one young MAN who read the first one, talked about it so much, and got nearly all of the girls in that class to read the series. They talked about this series ALL THE TIME, and it even made it onto the original young guy’s Instagram feed. The kids love the drama of it, and it obviously appeals to young men and young ladies (a gal completed the project you see above).

When I see this project, I smile, BIG TIME. The young lady who made it took a lot of time with it. She had eclectic taste in books. Thank heavens I knew this from teaching her the previous year, for I tried to buy books that appealed to her preferences as well. This project makes me smile because I’ll never forget how hard this student worked on EVERYTHING I asked her to do in class.

Had to show you the bonus feature of this project. Because my student didn’t have enough space to include everything on the checklist I was using for grading, she came up with this ingenious way to add them…a flap!!!

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In Their Words – Part 5

Posted on June 29, 2014 by auburnchick

More book projects that my students completed at the end of the year (there will be one more post after this one, I think).

A popular book with my boys

Hands-down one of the most PROLIFIC and moving books I have ever read. EVERY teenager needs to read this. I can usually get my staunches non-readers all the way through this book because they CANNOT PUT IT DOWN.

When I see this, I think of the young lady who made it. She did not like to read. She was a very slow reader, as evidenced by the lines she made in the book to mark her stopping points (ugh!!!). She completely adored this book and told me constantly that I needed to read it when she finished. I did, and it made her day when she saw it on my desk, bookmark in place. To know that I was reading something SHE had recommended went miles toward healing what had been a strained student-teacher relationship. She came back to see me on her last day (she left for a trip a few days before school was officially over). I will forever love this young lady!

My students cannot put these books down (there’s a set of three), and I always seem to “lose” one or more of them during a school year. They relate to the setting and the characters’ problems. Although I’ve never read these books, I’ve heard that they are raw and very, very real. This young lady redid her project because she didn’t like the first version and didn’t want to show less than her best work when it was placed under the document camera for her presentation.

The student who read this book was one I never quite managed to connect with despite my various attempts…a fact that makes me very sad. He, as you can see, is a gifted artist. He was very, very intelligent and could analyze a book, its characters, and its various themes. He really liked this book. I need to buy it for my classroom.

Another Allison van Diepen book. Her books NEVER sit on my bookshelves. If you’ve never read her, please do. Follow her on Twitter. She is one of the nicest ladies ever and one I’m trying to find a way to have come down here to speak to my students.

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In Their Words – Part 4

Posted on June 20, 2014 by auburnchick

More book advertisements from my students (click the pictures to embiggen)…

A compelling book by one of my favorite YA writers. The book is deep, let me tell you, but written quite cleverly and with a wit that will make you chuckle throughout. I’m going to do this as a Read Aloud this coming school year. The vocabulary, in places, is advanced, so I’ll tie in lessons as well. This student, as you can see, enjoyed it immensely!

Another popular book with my students. It is written in prose form, which appeals to many teenagers. The book, from what I’ve heard from my students, is gritty and raw.

This is a book that my male students gravitate toward. Two of my students did their book advertisements about it.

This is the second book advertisement for this book. What I love is the picture of the main character, whose hair was vividly described and constantly referred to in the books. The student who created this project flew through the series!

The third book advertisement for this novel. I love how each project depicted different items. Take a look at the oxygen canister…so pivotal in the book!!! This novel never stayed on the bookshelf!

Students rave about this book, even though many have read it by the time they get to high school. I simply must add it to my list!

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In Their Words – Part 3

Posted on June 19, 2014 by auburnchick

I really must stop procrastinating or else I’ll never finish with these!

Here is another batch of book advertisements created by my students…just in case you’re looking for good books for your classroom or for your child’s personal library.

A topic that any teenager can identify with…

Another Fault in Our Stars…the cigarette represents a poignant conversation

This is the student who nearly cried when he had to part with The Vampire Stalker, by the same author. Snitch is another favorite book in my classroom; it doesn’t sit on a bookshelf for long.

One of the books in the Blueford series and another topic that teenagers can definitely (and sadly) identify with

One of the books in the City of Bones series. I really want to read these books but probably won’t get to until the new school year starts.

One of the most popular books in my classroom. I wish someone wold make a movie based on it!!! Every student needs to read this. The fact that a student, whom I found it nearly impossible to keep interested in a book, read it cover to cover speaks volumes!

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In Their Words – Part 2

Posted on June 13, 2014 by auburnchick

This is Part 2 in a series of posts dedicated to the book advertisements my students made as their final project.

This student is a friend’s son. She requested that he be in my class…not a little bit of pressure on me to have him do well. 🙂 He was a joy to teach, and his taste in books was eclectic and spoke of an old soul. He ASKED me to buy the North and the South trilogy. I’d read these books when I was a teenager, so I was happy to oblige. Everything on this poster meant something, as he explained to the class…even the line across the middle of the paper, which symbolized the division that existed between the main characters, best friends, in the book as well as the citizens of the country. He used different colors to represent each side as well. The class adored this student and his quirky humor (his pants actually split during a tornado drill, and he LAUGHED it off instead of getting embarrassed).

Harry Potter made an appearance this year. One of my boys had read his way through half of the series by the time June arrived.

Bone is a graphic novel series that one of my students could not put down the last month of school. I frequently found him reading instead of doing his work. It was a great problem to have!

Legend was a series that was popular with the boys. I recently finished reading it after this young man insisted, for months, that I give it a go. It was similar to the Divergent series but with more likeable characters…softer in nature. The third book proved a satisfying end to the series.

This student read one Jay Asher book and was hooked. This is a favorite of mine simply because of the concept…being able to see into your future (two teenagers install America Online, log in, and are taken to their Facebook profiles…ten years before Facebook is invented). The student was drawn to the question of what you would do if you learned what your future held.

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