Blog 9

This novel was SOOO FUNNY. I caught myself laughing out loud a bunch. I could just picture Junior and see him saying this stuff. I also laugh a bunch and at pretty much everything so Junior kept me giggling. Junior is a tall, lanky Indian with a huge head and glasses. Of course he does not fit in. His best friend is Rowdy who seems to always have Junior’s back, until Junior betrays him by switching schools. Junior transfers into an all white school. He is a really big outcast here, until he beats up some kid and then is socially accepted. I was proud of Junior for going to the reservation. His teacher gave him the advice and it would be the only way Junior would be able to succeed in life. If he stayed on the reservation, he would not be able to be any better than the poor people there. I feel that this would be a great book to introduce to my class. Probably not my six graders, but I feel that eighth graders will definitely be able to handle the language in this book. The language is not THAT bad… nothing different than what students hear in the hallways.

            I’d have to say my favorite part in this book is when Junior’s team beats Rowdy’s team. I really felt that I knew Rowdy by reading this book. I was cheering for him the whole time. I do have to admit I did also feel like a traitor when Rowdy beat his old team. I mean he used to be one of them. He still is “one of them” at heart. This is the classic under-dog example. It was interesting to read about a culture different than my own or one I do not know a lot of information about. I believe students will find this novel an interesting read, and most will be able to relate with the issues of being able to fit in and being popular.

NATIVE AMERICAN’S IN CHILDRENS LITERATURE

I think it is interesting how Pocahontas is represented as a positive heroine. I guess I never thought about Native Americans being embarrassed about their heritage. I obviously have not given it much thought. I have always looked up to Pocahontas- I am in love with every Disney movie out there. She was a brave princess who had no fear. She was also kind and caring. Children may view Pocahontas as a figure representing Native Americans as a whole. This is far from true. Native Americans are not “savages” like they were represented back then. They are successful and STILL Indian. It is not one or the other, you can be both now. I feel that there need to be some updated use of books about Native Americans in the classroom. It is important to learn about the history, but to also know that Native Americans are normal people too.

THE INDIAN WARS

I was torn between what I believed during this Sports Illustrated article. Sometimes I would agree with how sports teams should not be named Redskins or after any other tribe name. Then someone would say something in the article that would change my mind. I would have to say I ultimately agree with this quote, "To a lot of the younger folks the name Redskins is tied to the football team, and it doesn’t represent anything more than a team”. Before reading this article, I had no idea that there were people out there who took offense to the use of tribe names for sports teams. I also had no idea that “chief” is equivalent to “nigger”. I don’t know how true that statement is, or how much the bad implication is upheld because my whole family used to call my grandfather Pappap Chief, and I am pretty sure my parents would not have let me say that if it was a negative name.

Alexie, S. (2007). The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Hachette Book Group USA.

Harris, V. J., & Reese, D. (1997). Native Americans in Children's Literature.Using multiethnic literature in the K-8 classroom (pp. 155-185). Norwood, Mass.: Christopher-Gordon.

Price, S. (2002, March 4). The Indian Wars. Sports Illustrated, 96, 66-72.

Multicultural books

        I really enjoyed reading The Geography Club and The Order of the Poison Oak. They were easy reads and were very intriguing. I found it to be interesting to learn a little more about the gay community and how a teenager would survive. While this is not a content area novel book, I feel that the topics brought up throughout these two books need to be addressed to students in this informal way. This is a very touchy subject, and I cannot imagine trying to bring it up in my classroom. I know I would get slurs and laughter, and it would just be one big mess. I know the term “gay” is used in everyday language for some people. “That’s gay” or “Don’t be gay” are very common phrases I even hear on this college campus. Instead of teaching students about this subject manner through lecture, it would be great to use these two books to enlighten my students.  

            I know many Middle School students will be able to relate to these books because they are not all about being gay. There are stories about surviving the bullies of the school and having boyfriends and girlfriends. I felt that these two books had the right amount of subject depth without making readers uncomfortable. I never once thought that something was inappropriate in these two novels. It was interesting to be informed of how children struggle with who they are as individuals. It is also important for me to know this because I need to know what troubles they may be going through as their teacher. These books can serve as a resource for struggling teens. They can also open up the eyes of the reader as to what some people may be experiencing.

            I thought it was interesting how the author chose to pair up a nerd and a jock. This just goes to show that ANYONE could be gay; it’s not just the “misfits”. Society needs to change their view on what is normal because clearly normal people do not even fit into society’s definition of normal. It also makes me wonder who at my high school was gay. Not that it bothers me, but I would find it interesting. I think that most male athletes could not even think about being gay because it was so out of the question. People associated say the football players with manliness. To find out that the quarterback was gay would be mind blowing. Someone somewhere would probably argue to get the kid off the team for some made up reason. So maybe many athletes back in high school wanted to be gay and come out, but couldn’t for the fear of being punished. That is an interesting thought.

            I liked the first article, Self Censorship, which is about the three picture books. These kind of books should be in libraries of schools. Gay and lesbian families are becoming more and more prominent in society so students should be informed of what is going on in the world. The article said it perfectly how the school libraries are stocked with books that make the adults comfortable. These three books aren’t THAT bad. It is nothing like what might be traveling along through the halls of a school. I would rather my child read a book then overhear conversations he or she doesn’t understand leading to wrong assumptions based on word of mouth. Also if these books are put on the shelves, it may make it easier for the children who relate most to the books to understand their lives more. For instance, the article mentions how in the first book the young girl notices she has two mommies and not everyone else does. But then she goes further to observe some have two daddies or many combinations of the two. These books can help students understand the world around them. The books would help, not hinder, education.

            In the second article, Moving Beyond LGBT, I thought the TIGers group was really cool. People need to be informed of these newer issues in society. Just because something is not the norm does not mean that it is bad. People often fear what they do not understand or know enough information about. I know after reading this article I understand Heteronormativity and Intersectionality way more than before (I really didn’t even know about them). I will agree that Heteronormativity is exactly what school systems are trying to hold on to. They do not want homosexuality to become “normal”. I feel that heterosexuality and homosexuality both need to been seen as “normal”. As I said before, different isn’t always bad.

            In the third article, From Queer to Gay and Back Again, I learned that there are so many more books out there with coming out stories. Honestly, I think that my two books for this week were the first books I have ever read in school about people being gay. Now I may be missing one, but I really racked my brain, and I do not believe I was ever required to read one. This is sort of mind blowing. Maybe my ignorance is to be blamed on my school system. This is not to say that I had no idea about the topics of debate. I definitely did, but I do not remember ever learning from classmates or in school what “gay” is. I know back in grade school people would think it was cool to throw around the term and if they ever got caught saying it they would blame it on its other definition of “happy”. Now while I do agree that more of these books need to be in the schools, I definitely think that it should be age appropriate. You can’t just throw mature topics to a class of immature students; I can’t even imagine that even sitting well. As we get older, I believe the trend is to be gradually more accepting of people that are different from us. If these issues are addressed early on, students may learn to be more accepting of differences.

Hartinger, B. (2003). Geography Club. New York: HarperTempest.

Hartinger, B. (2005). The Order of the Poison Oak. New York: HarperTempest.

Blackburn, M.,& Smith, J. (2010). Moving beyond the inclusion of lgbt-themed literatur inenglish language arts classrooms: Interrogating heteronormalitivity andexploring intersectionality. Journalof Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(8),625-634.

Jenkins, C. (1998).From queer to gay and back again: Young adult novels with gay/lesbian/queercontent. Library Quarterly , 68(3), 298-334.

Stewig, J.(1994). Self-censorship of picture books about gay and lesbian families. Concepts and Themes, 7(3), 184-193.

Omnivore’s Dilemma

Pollan, M. (2009). The omnivore's dilemma the secrets behind what you eat. New York, New York: The Penguin Group.

            I thought this book was really cool and informative. I had to read a book one time for a class about being a vegetarian, and the author just bashed on meat eaters the entire time. It was sort of offensive and made me feel horrible because I eat meat, but this book was far from it. Thank goodness. This book gives the history behind our food, in a very interesting way. I was clueless about the background of everything I ate. I would have not connecting it back to corn.  Almost EVERYTHING comes from corn. I also like how the book includes the origin of where the name “corn” came from. It was initially called maize. Students will learn this term most likely when they are taught about Native Americans and the English in their Social Studies class and will be able to see the relationship to this book.

            It is interesting how the author describes corn as “taking over America”. At first I thought it was so dumb, but then I read further and all of my surroundings probably came from corn. So yea, corn is taking over America. The book also goes into photosynthesis, and how it relates to our food. The diagrams are very helpful so that my students will be able to visualize what is coming in and going out of plants. Pollan does an excellent job with presenting all of this information into a way that is really easy to understand. I do not feel as if the book is “dumbed down” at all. I liked how he traced where the food came from on your plate to the industrial factories and then back to the animals and plants. Students need to know that animals aren’t just raised on a happy farm with a white picket fence. This is very misleading. I like to picture it that way, but this is far from what the animals’ experience. I want students to be knowledgeable about this issue, so that they can make the choice for themselves of whether to eat meat or not. Quite frankly, I think there needs to be a better way to treat the animals, but when people only care about making a profit, they won’t go through those measures.

            I thought the Turning Bombs Into Fertilizer chapter was mind blowing. From WWII, the government had so much ammonium nitrate that they decided to dump this surplus from the war onto farmland. The ammonium nitrate is the leftover bomb material. Why in the world would the government throw stuff that was used to kill people on to the fields of crops that we eat? It sounds pretty dangerous to me. Another mind blowing event was when I found out about how potatoes are grown. The pesticide used on potato crops called Monitor is so dangerous to the nervous system that field workers aren’t allowed to go into the field until five days after it has been sprayed, so why in the world would this be a good idea for us to eat? And then there is the other pesticide that kills any bug that bites into a potato. This pesticide is infused into the potato protecting it from prey, but then we are expected to eat this potato six months later after the pesticide has “worn off”. WHAT. This is very disturbing to me. The world is trying so hard to come up with very advanced ways of growing our food that they will introduce us to anything as long as it still brings in a profit for them. We are ingesting so much poison I would not be surprised if this was the reason why cancer has become very prominent during our lifetime. It is kind of scary at what will be invented next.

            I will definitely be making my students read this book in my classroom. I have learned so much from it, and I know that they will too. Especially with all of the fast food industries around town, maybe it will make students re-think their choice of their next meal. Childhood obesity is on the rise, and students need to learn about calories and food options. This book informs students without pointing fingers at specific individuals. I know after reading this it has made me want to make healthier choices for what I eat, and I even want to start back up the garden in my backyard at home. I want students to be informed of where their food comes from, and what it had to go through to end up on their dinner tables every night. 

A Really Short History of Nearly Everything

            Well I definitely did not expect the book to be as long as it was when I checked it out from the library. I was thinking it was going to be more of a picture book with not a lot of words.  While it did have pictures on every page, it had quite a bit of text. It definitely took a few days to read. It was also more difficult to read than a regular novel because it switched topics every few pages.

            I have a hard time trying to picture assigning this book to my Middle School students. Not only is the book really long, it jumps from topic to topic. It would be good if I just assigned a few pages, but I feel it would take away from the overall story line. It would be excellent to use as a backup supplemental text because the book breaks it down so easily and is very informative.  The pictures, both animated and “real” really get the point across. This book definitely is not as boring as a regular textbook. I feel that it would be really interesting for my Middle School students. It kind of reminds me of that book of Guinness World Records. This book has taught me a lot- it breaks it down so easily that even difficult topics are easy to understand.

            The content of this book really did hit on “nearly everything”. It does an excellent job of taking a really important topic and explaining the key points on that topic. They have about a page to carefully explain say the Earth’s orbit, so there is no extraneous information given on the topic. And the pictures just add on to the affect. When I had a hard time processing the information, I would just look down at the pictures, and it helped make more sense. Visual learners will definitely benefit from this book- the pictures are almost as descriptive as the text. Now that I am reflecting back on this book, I will surely have this book on a shelf in my classroom.

Bryson, B. (2003_. A really short history of nearly everything. New York: Random House.