The Semester Recap!

This semester I have been overwhelmed by children’s books Reading and blogging about 45 children’s picture books and 9 novels seemed daunting at the beginning of the semester. I didn’t know why we had to read so many books! Looking back I have ended up actually enjoying it, at times it was hard but I have been exposed to so many books. My knowledge of children’s literature had been expanded. Before I could only tell you about the fiction books that I loved as a child. Now I know so many authors and different types of books different genres of children’s books.
One of the projects that I found to be especially helpful was the genre presentation. For this presentation our classmates researched different genres and presented us with information on the characteristics of the genre and books in that genre. I referred to the information we received on the genres for another class I was in. I was working with a student and we were moving from an emphasis on reading to writing. When thinking about what resources I could use that incorporated reading and writing I remembered our discussion of wordless books and how these books have illustrations but little to no text. I thought that I could use this during my time with my student so she could read the little text the book had and then write the “missing text.” This example demonstrated how important knowledge of children’s books is to the classroom teacher.
The discussions we have had in class on the choice of text and what choosing a certain text might mean to the students has also been helpful. I never thought much of text selection before, I thought that as long as it tied into what I wanted to teach on then it would be okay. Now I am taking into consideration who is the text writen for? Is there a group of people who are stereotyped by the text? What message am I sending my students if I read this text aloud? Read alouds can be powerful and can show students what you as a teacher value. I want to value all of my students and their backgrounds so in order to that I need to be critical of the texts I read or have them read.
Now all the blogs and the time spent in the library searching for the right books has been time well spent. My blog can be a great resource for me to refer back to when I am looking for a poetry or a book about two dads. I have a list of poetry books, controversial books, graphic novels at my finger tips. Now I can see that I have created a resource that will serve to help me in the future