Your assignment is a 2nd Quarter Summary blog post to me and your parents about what you’ve learned and how, using the standards and evidence from class.
That is the first line of the “final exam” I wrote for our second quarter, seventh grade reading class. I am still working on developing my no-grades classroom and still struggling with how best to communicate to students, parents, and my principal just what students learned these past nine weeks;however, the summary post has worked as a nice review of the standards and content we worked on for the quarter and as actual evidence of learning that I can share with anyone interested. The essence of this form of assessment is similar to traditional final exams in the sense that it asks, essentially: What did you do? What did you learn? The process of writing this post is learning, and I use it to conference with students about not only their learning but about my teaching. It is a time for me to reflect on what I can do to be a better teacher for each student specifically but also generally, i.e., what I taught well, what experiences and assignments are effective, and what I need to revise, discard, and create.
Inspired by Penny Kittle, Donalyn Miller, and Nancie Atwell, our reading class is organized in a workshop model. Students read books they choose for about 15 minutes each day as I walk around stopping at each desk to confer about their book choice, their pace, their comprehension, and then how books are working as windows and mirrors. Our focus this year is on reading books that invite us to consider different ways of being in the world, so our library is inclusive with diverse authors and characters (race, ethnicity, language, ability, gender, sexual orientation, class, landscape, time period). We also have shared reading. Last term it was Tree Girl by Ben Mikaelsen, and this term it was The Outsiders. Students blog about their reading to practice claims and evidence, do video book talks, make movies, and participate in book groups with Kylene Beers and Bob Probst’s Notice and Note. I try not to use worksheets or packets so as not to confine students’ reading experiences, so we used book marks based on Notice and Note to guide the group work.
To honor the process of reading and learning, I avoid grades throughout the term, which tend to stop the learning or mark an end. Rather, I give narrative feedback (written and verbal) to each student to encourage her to stretch her reading experiences and deepen her responses and analysis. This form of assessment seems to honor the reader as an individual while providing evidence for us to assess where the student is in her reading development and how she can stretch into the next term.
Here is the rest of the second quarter reading summary assignment and some student responses:
A. Independent Reading: List what books have you read; write what the books are about; write if the characters/lives in the books are more like mirrors or windows for you; write about some themes or ideas about humanity in those books. Which was your favorite, why (you can/should use the list you started from midterm and add on)? Did you meet your goal for the quarter of the number and variety of books you agreed to finish? How or why not?
My favorite book this quarter was Burn Out by Kristi Helvig. The book was mostly science fiction but had some realistic fiction involved within it too. It was mostly about a girl, Tora, who lived on a scorching hot Earth with no water or food. Her goal was to survive as long as she can in an underground bunker till someone would rescue her. This book was also full of action on every page and lots of suspense and cliffhangers. I don’t think that I have read a book with so many subjects intertwined in 300 pages. There was romance, mystery, death, war, sacrifice and much much more. My goal for the second quarter was to read 5 more books to make my 1st and 2nd quarter total 10 books. I have currently read 11, so I have completed my goal.
The books that I’ve read since the beginning of the school year:
- Double Identity, by Margaret Peterson Haddix
- The Red Pony, by John Steinbeck
- The Pearl, by John Steinbeck
- The Six, by Mark Alpert
- Stung, by Bethany Wiggins
- The Twinning Project, by Robert Lipsyte
- Burn Out, by Kristi Helvig
- Words With Wings, by Nikki Grimes
- Strange Skies, by Kristi Helvig
- Diary Of A Wimpy Kid Cabin Fever, by Jeff Kinney
- Diary Of A Wimpy Kid the Long Haul, by Jeff Kinney
In independent reading, I’ve finished the following books since the quarter began:
- The Smell of Old Lady Perfume ll Claudia Guadalupe Martinez ll Realistic, family, death, coming of age ll 10/29/15 – 11/1/15
- Ungifted ll Gordon Kormon ll Realistic, ability ll 11/2/15 – 11/4/15
- The Cabinet of Earths ll Anne Nesbet ll Mystery, fantasy, divorce, family ll 11/5/15 – 11/8/15
- Unstoppable ll Tim Green ll Realistic, abuse, family, ability, sports ll 11/9/15 – 11/13/15
- Almost Home ll Joan Bauer ll Realistic, family, financial instability ll 11/14/15 – 11/19/15
- A Long Walk to Water ll Linda Sue Park ll Realistic, poverty ll 11/20/15 – 11/25/15
- Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Not Reading ll Tommy Greenwald ll Realistic, ability ll 11/26/15 – 11/30/15
- Let’s Get Lost ll Adi Alsaid ll Realistic, romance ll 12/1/15 – 12/16/15
- The Heart of Betrayal ll Mary E. Pearson ll Fantasy, romance ll 12/17/15 – 1/3/16
- The FifthWave ll Rick Yancey ll Fantasy, loneliness ll 1/4/16 – ***
Many of the books I’ve read this quarter have a protagonist with family issues. The stories are mostly about how they deal with their issues and mend their relationships with their families. For example, in Unstoppable, Harrison escapes his abusive foster parents and reluctantly learns to care for and love his new ones. In Almost Home, Sugar learns to care for her emotionally and mentally unstable mother after her grandfather dies and father is off gambling somewhere unknown. In some cases, like Chela’s in The Smell of Old Lady Perfume, they recover but things don’t get better than before. Chela’s family continues to struggle financially and (SPOILER ALERT), but they become closer to together and stronger.
I have read…
- Sleeping beauty by Wendy Mass
- The Runaway princess by Kate Coombs
- The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire by Phillip Lester and Daniel Howell
- Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
- Smile by Raina Telgemeier
The first book is an interesting version of the original fairy tale. Rose is a princess cursed at birth by a wicked witch.Rose is kind,pretty, and really everything you want in a princess. The prince is normal for the most part, except his mom has some ogre blood. The story is being told in two parts , the prince and the princess. Eventually the story intertwine with one another. The story is really about finding yourself.
The next book is a fairy tale also about a princess except she is being married off. It’s called the Runaway Princess. Meg doesn’t want to get married off but, her dad the king needs her to cooperate. Naturally he locks her in a tower but, she escapes. this book is about how girls can do anything girls can do.
The last book is a biography of two people who make a living making videos and writing blogs. The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire is a look into the life of Dan and Phil, two people I have become very fond of. Dan is more of a downer and very awkward but his BFF Phil is bright and outgoing. I like this book because it really is about being true to yourself.
Hatchet is like survival fiction. Brian is a boy who was gifted with a hatchet by his father. Brian is traveling on a plane with the pilot in it only when the pilot has a heart attack. The crash into a lake and Brian survives but, with no food, people, or shelter. There is no way out. He must hunt, build , and live like humans were meant to do. He uses his hatchet and past knowledge to help himself.
Smile is a fun book with picture and the whole thing. Raina must live like a normal girl except, her two front teeth are fake do to an accident with her “friends”. This book is just fun and really about what it is like to grow up.
Independent reading is really hard for me to get in to the book because I get distracted & i don’t get into the book . i have only read one book, but i’m almost finish with another book . i only get into the book if i’m alone or if i’m hearing someone read the book . the book that i finished was easy to finish because it had a little bit of pages but it was all so pretty good to read . i think if i’m alone reading i could finish a the books . but if i’m with people i get distracted & i can’t read . the books that i read are called: Yummy, which is about a little kid that is in a gang & he gets killed at the end of the book & he’s own gang killed him because they couldn’t deal with him no more so the killed him( gang , realistic ) .
B. Independent Literary Analysis, blogs :What claims have you made? What does it mean to make a claim? How do you support those claims? What feedback are you getting from your teacher about your literary analysis, and how are you using that feedback to improve or stretch?
The claim I made for blog 2.1 and 2.2 were how people change when they are mistreated and how Johnny’s house had a different atmosphere then Ponyboy. These claims came from the books’ The Outsiders and Cardboard.Now you may be wondering what is a claim.A claim is like a point you want to make and then you have to back it up with evidence.In these blogs I receive feedback from Dr.Donovan and she tells me what to improve and how to improve (explain how my quote connects to my claim and giving my opinion) and what she likes about my blogs (strong claims and using a page number in my citation).I use this and the new books I’ve been reading to try to make better blogs.
Here are some of the claims I made this quarter (on the weekly blog):
- 2.1: The group was disbanded making Cinder almost loose her mind.
- 2.2: “Papa’s Waltz” is not just about dancing.
- 2.3: Ashlynn depression is causing problems in her life.
What it means to make a claim is to make a powerful statement about the the things in the book like theme, plot, setting etc. A way to make a claim is to take one of the choices like theme then add evidence to support the claim by text and examples from the book. I mostly made claim about the changes in the story I don’t like how I did that. I did get thoughtful feedback from Dr. Donovan and try to fix any problems in them such as the language of the claim or connecting my quote to the claim. I think I added more of my thoughts during this midterm then last term. I want to try to change up my claim a bit by the end of the quarter.
C. Shared reading and analysis: What did you read? What did you learn from reading with others?
a. Poems: What poem did you read? What was it about? If you read with a partner, did you agree on the meaning? Why is it helpful to read with other people? What form or technique did you research? What did you learn about that?
The poem I read in class was “The Quiet Room” by Evelyn Lau. The poem described a girl being killed in a mental hospital. Some evidence to prove this is “the nurse stealing life through a hole in the patient’s arm”. Then the girl dreams of killing these doctors and escaping, “Knives licking doctor’s throats, dynamite fragment the brick walls.” She wanted them to feel the way she did, “Their fear, mirroring back into her eyes.” But she didn’t escape and the camera moved on to the next patient. Knowing this poem was a metaphor, I interpreted it differently than what it described. The girl feels trapped in her home, her parents(the doctors) are possibly abusing her and she wants them to feel the way she does; she wants to escape. The camera blinking to a new patient suggests that she finds a way out but then her parents begin to abuse a sibling of her’s. My partner and I agreed on this meaning. It is helpful to read with others as they might have found and/or interpreted something you didn’t and vice versa. I researched an extended metaphor. A an extended metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. We think the quiet room is an extended metaphor for the speaker’s home, that she must have been feeling quite trapped by her parents.
For the poems, I read “My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke (Rath-Key). It was a confessional poem about the relationship of a boy and his father.The point of view is the boy, but he was probably older since it is a confessional poem which is probably about how he liked that day were he danced around with his father. At first I thought the father was abusive because of words that the author used in the poem made me think of it that way, but they were actually just dancing happily. The sentences that made me think that the father was abusive was in the 3rd stanza where it says “The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle; at every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle.” but I didn’t think it through and the father hurt himself at work and the boy must be as tall as his father’s waist since his ear must have scraped his father’s buckle
b. Novel to Film Adaptation: What did you read and see? What have you learned about how novels are adapted to films and the sort of choices cinematographers make including how those choices impact the meaning of the story? Has this impacted how you view TV or movies? How?
My scene was the hospital scene where Johnny says “Sixteen years ain’t long enough.” I filmed it with Sonia and Annabella, we switched to different characters twice, just for experiment. We used an medium-shot and a close-up shot in our film. I compared our film to Coppola’s film, we used low-key lighting while Coppola used high-key lighting but I liked how we used low-key because it added more of a dramatic effect to it.
I think I did a good job meeting the standard and comparing the film to the written story. I learned that the book, at least for me is a lot more vivid because you can imagine it yourself. As the director it is hard to meet the expectations that the audience has from reading the book. The story has to be cut if you are adapting a book into a film because the movie would just be to long. In my opinion that is what makes the books seem so much better to me. This has really impacted how I see movies because the bar is set so high for film makers and I can’t imagine actually being a director.
c. Book Groups: What did you read and with whom? What does it meant to be in a book group; did you come prepared; why does that matter; what do you enjoy about the group;how is it helping you understand/deepen/stretch your thinking about the text; why is it beneficial to talk about what you read with others (or not)?
For book groups, I showed plenty of evidence that supported my goal of reaching standards. I think that the book groups were made fantastically, because we got to have at least 2 people of our choice in our groups. I believed that that was the greatest book group I’ve ever had, The Outsiders. To be in book group means to be responsible for completing all your work on time as well as reading only to the marked chapter and not beyond. I came prepared every day with all my work and all my reading done. It matters to come prepared because if one student doesn’t have his work or reading done, it pretty much messes up the whole flow of the book group. It is good to talk about what you read because, if you did not understand what you read or if you have questions, you always have 4 to 5 people that can help.
Our book groups were a mix of people we wanted and some new people who were equally as great to have after getting to know them. A book group is a where you can discuss what you read, share your thoughts, and discuss some deeper meanings. I came prepared because without being prepared and doing your job, you wouldn’t be able to experience the discussion as well as others. Everyone did a job where they were able to put their thoughts together, it helped them prevent getting lost in discussion and fully understand them. One thing that I enjoyed about the book groups was that it was easier to participate in discussion with the smaller amount of people listening. The book groups have helped me stop and thing about important and deeper things that happen in the book more instead of just skipping over it and continuing to read.
E. Technology for Book Talks: What does technology do for sharing books? Promoting reading? Watch three book talks that seem interesting, then say which you watched and what book they talked. What makes a good book talk? Did you make a good book talk? What will you differently or repeat for next quarter?
J’s: What I think makes a good book talk is clear speaking, which is exactly what she did. She also had a lot of expression on her voice which made me feel like I was in the room with her. She read Among the Hidden, a book I fully intended to read. Luke is the main character but, he must remain hidden. You are only allowed to have 2 kids, Luke is the third kid. She makes a claim that his parents are very protective because of this. I really like how J did this book talk.
Z’s: Z was reading The Outsiders. Like all of us in reading. Z is very clear and very nice. She introduced the characters and predicted that this took place in the 60s. I also liked how she made a claim saying how Pony Boy is smart but, he does not think he is . I found this to be very true, she really backed up her claim with an opinion and tons of evidence I also really enjoyed this book talk.
A’a:A read a book called Zodiac another book i would really like to read. The main character is Ro. Your zodiac sign determines what planet you live on and your personality. So cool! She talks about how she is under a ton of pressure for a sixteen year old, and backs it up. I love her book talk because she speaks so confidently, so it makes me hooked in and stick around.
I did a book talk on Sleeping Beauty by Wendy Mass. I showed my understanding of the book. I think my book talk was successful, I will use a different thing to record it on though because it sounded a little weird. I think these girls did better than me because I love how they spoke so nicely and made claims with evidence. I met this standard well.
F. Overall, how are you doing in class; what is the best part; what is challenging; what am I trying to teach you; what are you learning about yourself as a reader; are you seeing how literature can be a mirror, a window, informational, and art? How? Other comments?
In class, I am doing really well. I know what we are doing and I follow the directions. What I like about reading that we can read 15 minutes by ourselves in the beginning and also we have the 20 min reading and 20 minute Chromebook/iPad time. What I think is challenging is the book talks, because I always feel like I did something wrong or left something out. Something that I am learning about myself as a reader is that I LOVE sci-fi books. I can totally see how literature can be a window, or an art. Because like poetry is so well written and the flow is so smooth, it just feels like art, but in words.
I think 2nd quarter was great since I kind of got more comfortable in school and so I’m doing a lot better. I am learning a lot from this class, and I use to hate Reading since it was so boring to me but when I came to 7th grade everything seemed much better. I am learning about more topics that I’ve never heard about before and I love Dr. Donovan’s library since it has a whole lot of good books and they’re easy to find unlike the big library. I’ve got to say that the book groups was the best part of 2nd Quarter because I bonded with classmates more and I learned about things I’ve never thought about before, so I really liked that. I want to read more books like Dr. Donovan or at least try to, and I also want to try harder so that I’ll get a better at Reading
The best part about being in Dr.Donovan’s reading class is that we get t read different books everyday, hearing other people’s opinion about a book, the blog, and learning new things that I never thought I would learn, for example, cinematographers and filming skits.The most challenging parts about the class were book talks, and just doing blogs every Thursday.As a reader I’m learning that i could read more challenging books that I didn’t know I could read and learn that i like other genres.When I was reading different genres most of the books were books that were window books.What I mean about this is that it opens me to new books,genres,and overall just good books.
Here are the books I read this quarter:
Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher (11/14) **** realistic, mixed cultures
Mae by Gene Ha (11/7) ** fantasy, graphic
Sisters by Raina Telgemeier (11/7) **** graphic
Looking for Alaska by John Green (11/4)**** realistic, rich/poor
All American Boys by Jason Reynolds (11/2) ***** realistic, two races
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson (10/29) **** realistic, artistic people, twins, sexual orientation
Heist Society by Ally Carter (10/26 ) *** mystery
Mockingbird by Kathryn Erksine (10/26) ***** realistic, ability difference
Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas by Natasha Yim (12/30) cultural, fantasy
Tiger in My Soup by Kashmira Sheth (12/30) fantasy
The Daddy Mountain by Jules Freiffer (12/30) realistic
Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder (12/30) genocide, Rwanda, historical
One-Handed Catch by M.J. Auch (12/30) ability difference, baseball, historical
Not if I See you First by Eric Lindstrom (12.29) ability difference, blindness, love, running
OCD Love Story by Corey Haydu (12/28) ability difference, OCD, love
The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian (12/28) genocide Armenia, historical
47 by Walter Mosely (12/26) slavery, sci-fi
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (12/25)- mental illness, realistic
In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse by Joseph Marshall (12/24) historical, cultural
Paperboy by Vince Vawter (12/23) ability difference, Tourettes, historical, baseball
She is Not Invisible by Marcus Sedgwick (12/22) mystery, ability, blindness
Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon (12/17) auto-immune disorder, realistic
Cruise Control by Terry Trueman (12/12) cerebral palsy
Notes from the Midnight Driver by Jordan Sonneblick (12/12) crime, elderly, music
The Juvie Three by Gordon Korman (12/1) crime, city
Zen and the Art of Faking It by Jordan Sonnenblick (12/1) fitting in, culture, religion
Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis (11/25) sexual identity, time travel or other dimensions, fantasy
Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman (11/20) ability difference