I had so much fun at Open House seeing 18 of the 26 students in my class! It's going to be a great year. I just wanted to write on here a repeat of what I told many of you who came to the school today--that I would be posting 1-2 times a week and that I'll have my students post 1-2 times a week also. What they post could be one of their writing assignments, a book recommendation, a book response from reading groups, their thoughts on a field trip, what they think about what we're learning in science or social studies or any other idea that gets approved by me.
I'm looking forward to them posting on here and I hope that you will check back frequently, at least weekly, to see what the students in my class have been writing.
Also, as a follow-up to my first post on here about the Newbery Award winning and Honor books: I read them within the past two weeks and I loved them!
Dead End in Norvelt is especially entertaining for boys, though girls will also thoroughly enjoy it. It is set during the summer of 1962 and makes some references to WWII, especially the Pacific Arena, and also to Communists (since 1962 was a year of a lot of tension between the USSR and the USA).
Inside Out and Back Again is written in free verse poetry. I didn't know that when I picked it up, but it was really refreshing. It helped me to focus on the images that the author was trying to portray about her feelings and experiences.
Breaking Stalin's Nose was a really fast read with pictures to accompany the text. It is set in the USSR during Stalin's regime. The background needed to understand this novel could either come before or after reading--either was the feeling of the main character will be felt as he feels his world get flipped around from the first page of the book to the last. Incidentally, all three of these books are based on the experiences of the authors; not purely autobiographical, but definitely strong ties to actual experiences in the authors' lives.
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