Skip to main content

Books, Books and More Books!



Slicing every day in March!!

Today's slice is about the books I'm currently reading or have recently finished reading. No spoilers here. Just a few sentences about each one.


If the Oceans Were Ink by Carla Power is the story of an unlikely collaboration between a North American white female academic and an Islamic male scholar. 
Even though I consider myself open-minded, reading this book is making me aware of my biases and how I may have formed them.


I just started reading Math Running Records in Action by Dr. Nicki Newton. I look forward to learning how to use math running records to help me determine how my students reason (or not) when adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. 


What can I say about Simon and the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli? First of all, it is the author's debut novel. Secondly, as a counselor, the author worked with adolescents. Finally, LGBT, bullying, and friendships lost and made, are some of the topics addressed in this book. 


Reading and rereading this book. Love the analogy between reading closely and falling in love - you get to know both the text and your partner well and in nuanced ways. In order to do that you have to look closely. Too simplistic? Perhaps. Pick up a copy and let's have a conversation.  


I am enjoying this biography of Charles Darwin. 
I am learning so much that I never knew! 
I picked up this book during the biography portion of our nonfiction unit. Although I like to read lots of middle grades books so that I can book talk them to my class or individual students, biographies are not my go-to genre. That may change after I finish this book! 

Happy Reading! 









Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Reading Strategies Book - Chapter 12, Supporting Students’ Conversations – Speaking, Listening, and Deepening Comprehension

The strategy lessons highlighted in Chapter 12, Supporting Students’ Conversations – Speaking, Listening, and Deepening Comprehension, in The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo are critical to students’ engagement and comprehension, as well as their ability to write literary essays, or even book reviews, summaries and reflective pieces about books. If students aren’t able to talk about books in a way that is invigorating and joyful, they will be less likely to develop an interest in growing ideas for writing about books. In her introduction to this chapter, Jennifer Serravallo, reminds us that when conversations go well, children are inspired by what they read and are motivated to keep reading. However, when conversations fall flat, then kids get bored and tune out. How do we avoid this situation and teach kids to  have  focused conversations about books?  The answer is easy: teach kids  strategies to help them develop effective conversa...

Are we listening?

A child sits alone with a ripped worksheet packet on his desk. He appears to be singing or subvocalizing something though no one hears him. Or, perhaps they're ignoring him. The teacher stands at the front of the room teaching on the SmartBoard. The children follow along in their worksheets. Except the child sitting alone. He is in his own world. No one engages him and he engages no one. My heart aches for this child. He is physically and emotionally removed from the class. I ask him why his paper is ripped. (It's not an accidental rip.) He says he did that on a different day. When he had been frustrated about the work. He tells me that he sometimes sits by himself because the work is too hard for him. He later tells me that he sits by himself because the teacher thinks he talks too much during the lesson.  He says he does that because he wants to find out about the "lives of the other children". My first impulse is to rescue him from the wrongheade...

Partner Reading and Content, Too Routine (PRC2)

I'm a hoarder. There, I've said it. I try to deny that I'm a hoarder but it comes back to haunt me every time I move houses, or pack up my classroom at the end of the school year. I have old articles, lesson plans, handouts, folders brimming with teaching ideas, past issues of profesional journals. I hardly throw anything out though I've learned to be more selective over the years. My one rule of thumb, and I really try to stick to this, is that if I haven't used or referred to something in a year, then it's time to toss it into the recycle bin. One exception to this rule (you knew this was coming, didn't you?) is past issues of journals from professional organizations. However, with the ability to locate articles online through my professional memberships, even this exception is becoming less and less useful, which brings me to the topic of this blog post. I am currently reading a copy of The Reading Teacher from 2010. I've clipped a cou...