Visualizing Via Fantasy & Fiction

I didn't use to be a big visualizer. As a student I was much too practical and then probably too cool to do this. However, as a teacher I have found it to help me so much when I am modeling writing for my students. In fact, whenever I'm writing fiction it is a necessity. I lack much easy flowing imagination so I need to do this step to "see" what I am planning to write about before I write it. Otherwise, it is impossible to write the detail that I need to make the story realistic.

When I read, I am lucky that I grew up in a home where cable TV didn't exist and books aplenty did. So as a reader, visualising comes naturally. It almost bothers me when an author goes into so much detail that it limits what I can see in my head or disagrees with what I see in my head. That is why I didn't want to read Freedom Writers. I had already seen the movie and it is no fun to read a book when the movie limits what you can see in your head. Plus I wasn't really impressed by the movie, so that also sets the book up in a bad light for me.

As a teacher, it is painfully obvious which students have theability to imagine and those that don't. I do an activity within my writing class when I let them write fiction, specifically fantasy and sci-fi where they have to visualize a fictitious creature and all it's workable parts. They get to draw a picture of it but also have to write expositorally about how each of its "adaptations" allow it to live in the setting it does. Then of course we begin developing the setting of the students' stories.

How do we wake up the sleeping imagination of students? That is a wonderful question that I don't know the right answer to. I know what with art and writing and reading we have to make using our imaginations fun. But for something to be fun for someone they generally have to be good at it or see themselves getting better at it. So many students have not have their imaginations developed at all when they were little so they are not good at it and then start to hate it when their teachers give them to opportunity to use their imagination.

That is why I like fantasy obsession in YA right now. What a great way for our students to have to look outside the box. Let's just hope they read the book before seeing the movie!

Nonfiction Book Group Y: ESCAPE!

Group Y: for the sake of convenience I am placing my posts about our book club books on Orchid's blog. That we we don't have to go to four different blogs to talk to one another.

Kristina

Historical Fiction YAY!

Historical fiction is what I would probably consider my favorite genre, even though a good book is simply a good book no matter what genre it is in. I loved the chapter in the text because Ann Rinaldi is one of my top authors along with Karen Hesse and Richard Peck who both write historical fiction.

I took this week to revisit some old favorites and find one new one. Wolf by the Ears was the first Rinaldi book I read. I was captured first by the cover picture of the girl in the southern dress. While I read this book when I was probably in 7th or 8th grade, the subject matter of miscegenation, or when white slave owners fathered a family with a slave mistress, stuck with me into college where I chose to write my honor's history 25 plus page paper on the Thomas Jefferson account. I truly think my interest in that subject that made read book after book of nonfiction started with Rinaldi's Wolf. I have read many other Rinaldi books and have yet to read one where I haven't been completely entertained and felt as if I learned a lot. Since she is so thourough with her research, I can feel comfortable believing what I learn through these fictional novels. I'm happy to see the cover of Wolf hasn't changed this that was something that really drew me in almost 15 years ago.

I also reread A Year Down Yonder and A Long Way From Chicago. It may not ring as true to students out here in the Pacific Northwest, but if you ever end up in the Mid-west, I highly recommend these books since they tell a lot of local history of Illinois and Missouri.

The new book I read was the historical fiction graphic novel mix that won the Scott O'Dell award this year called The Storm in the Barn by Matt Phelan. While it was a pretty good book overall, it it fell short close in my opinion to the historical depth that other traditional historical fiction books explore. This book was unique in that it is a graphic novel. As far as graphic novels go, and my opinion of them is pretty low right now, this on was pretty good.

Picture Book for YA's

I read an enchanting book (I don't use that word often and feel slightly foolish using it now, but it really was enchanting...yikes I used it again!) called Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village. It is a Newbery Medal book, and it's originality is amazing and while I don't think it would fall completely into the picture book genre since there is a lot of prose too, the illustrations and corresponding vignettes are great. Any social studies teacher going into a unit on medieval times must use this book to make history come alive. Also, as a reading teaching if you are going to read a novel set in medieval times, this would be a great, quick read to intro the novel with. I suppose this book is worthy of being the focus of a novel unit itself albeit a shorter one.

Again, I highly recommend this book. You will have spent your time wisely reading this one.

SMALL GROUP SOS

Kim Daniels,Lauren Hall, Sarah Lehman, Rebecca Kuluris:

Kim & Sarah, I am followers of your blogs, but do you know the web addresses of Lauren Hall's and Rebecca's. If you do, can you please comment on this post and leave me the web address?

Lauren & Rebecca, If I have somehow looked over your blogs on Dauer's blog, I apologize and please also leave a comment so I can find your post.

Thanks,

Kristina Alvarez