Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Sword of Summer
I finally finished Magnus Chase! I am a huge fan of the Percy Jackson books and was so excited when I found out about the new series. I was not disappointed, and am pretty sure that is Magnus and Percy ever meet (which they might since Magnus is Annabeth’s cousin) the sassiness would probably lead to the end of the world, which would be awesome!
Rick Riordan is a great author when it comes to getting kids excited about reading!
Annotation: After plunging to his death, Magnus Chase is chosen as einherja, one of the great heroes chosen to train and fight for Valhalla in the Ragnarok. But Magnus is not content waiting for doomsday, and decides to follow though when a prophecy is reviled.
Topics: Norse mythology; friendship; adventure
Thematic Statement: Magnus must learn to rely on his friends and embrace his own power as well as let go of control to complete his quest.
Rang of Appeal: 4th – 10th grade.
Plot: On Magnus Chase’s 16th birthday, he is confronted by a fire giant and dies trying to save innocent bystanders. As he falls off the bridge Sam, a Valkyrie, chooses to take his soul to Valhalla where warriors training to fight for Oden. But things are more complicated than waiting for doomsday. After the honor of his death is questioned Magnus decides to return to the mortal world to find the sword of summer and postpone the end of the world.
Evaluation: This is a fun read, with snarky characters reminiscent of the Percy Jackson series. The main themes of the book are friendship and finding inner strength. A fine example of this is Sam, who is both Museum- American and a daughter of Loki, and consequently experiences prejudice in both the human and Norse world. Though Sam clearly feels that people judge her by her heritage her character is much more complexed. As she and Magnus learn to work together they discover that there is more to each other than meets the eye and they lean to accept who they are as well as each other.
Thought Questions: Magnus chooses to break the rules and go on a quest to find the sword of summer, are his choice justifiable? Or should he have been punished upon his return to Valhalla?
Both Sam and Magus’ actions can be explained and justified because “they are true heroes”, what does this mean in context of the story? Are they truly heroes?
Is fate fixed, or do people have control over their own destiny?
Connections and Reasons: Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus, and Red Pyramid series by Rick Riordan all deal with modern day kids finding a connection to mythology and having to save the world. The books all have a similar tone and themes of friendship, self-realization, and trying to change fate. There are some character overlaps between Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus books.
Additional Notes: This book reference both the Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus series, so although it is not necessary to read these books before reading Magnus, I would recommend it.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
This is a book that I think needs to be read twice. Which means that I really liked it! The first time to enjoy the incredible wring of Stephen Chbosky and the second time to really understand Charlie (the main character and narrator) and his friends.
I say this because when I started the book I was annotating and ended up doing a lot of marking on the page. This was because I was enjoying the book and had a lot of interesting thoughts as I read, however, after a few pages I stopped annotating because I was enjoying the book so much and I just wanted to go along for the ride. I also find that with books I read twice my annotations get better the second time around because I don’t need to pay as much attention to the general plot and therefore can dig into the details. A second read is also useful because I have a better idea of what is important when I start instead of trying to figure it out as I go.
As far as teaching or recommending this book to students I would definitely make sure it is available to them like Speak (the last book I reviewed) The Perks of Being a Wallflower deals with some very heavy themes that may be all too real for some students. Because of this I would not read this book as a class (at least not in middle school) but would recommend it to students I believed could handle it. I would also make it known that if any student reading this book needed help dealing with some of the teams it presents could come and speak to me about whatever is bothering them.
Hopefully the next book to be I will finish is Magnus Chase and The Gods of Asgard by Rick Riordan.
SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson
I remember this book from when I was in middle school. In sixth grade I was in a school production called Connections where students preformed short skits, dances, and monologues centered around the theme of connection. A girl who was a year older than I was turning the opening page of “Speak” into a monologue, which she spoke beautifully. However, after hearing the gut wrenching words describing Melinda Sodino’s first day of high school, I decided that such a grave book was not for me.
My loss. This book was phenomenal.
I could go on and on about the writing style. The reader realy feels like they are inside Melinda’s head, allowing access to a character that has closed herself off from the world. In addition the observations Melinda makes about her high school classmates and their way she deals with her own feelings have a very real and raw quality that pull at the heart and make excellent reading.
I will encourage students to read this book in my class. It deals with hard subjects such as rape, depression, isolation, and fear; however, these are thing that needs to be talked about. Students have a right to gain an understanding, though literate, and this book does an excellent job of assessable while still staying true to the seriousness of its subject.
I can see this book being used to teach students about literature and contemporary writing as well as being used to start a conversation about its deep themes.
Upcoming book reviews: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: the Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chybosky
Type A or Type B?
When I was doing my practicum work at Preston Middle School last semester, my supervising teachers asked me if I had a relaxed or controlling teaching style. It was an easy question to answer because as a type A personality, I try to control almost everything. He then asked if we preferred a school that encouraged a teacher to be relaxed or controlling. The question stumped me. The answer that first popped into my head was that I would like a school that was less relaxed and encouraged a stricter teaching style. But something about that seemed like a possibly poisonous environment, and sometimes a bunch of type A personalities don’t work very well together.
Preston however, turned out to be a relaxed school. And I learned that that is a very good environment for me to be in, because, although I still think I will be a stricter teacher, it helped me relax a bit.
This experience led me to think about what kind of teacher I want to be. To be honest, I think a more relaxed teaching style is probably more fun for students and may create a better learning environment. But on the other hand, some of my favorite and best teachers have been very strict. So like most things there is a balance in there somewhere, it just turns out to be a hard balance to find.
So I thought it would be fun to include a link to a personality test, that way if you are wondering if you are a type A or a type B personality you can find out.
http://www.psych.uncc.edu/pagoolka/TypeAB.html
(If it asks you for a password just press “cancel”)
Book Review: Ther Giver, Gathering Blue, Messenger
When the school year ended, I thought that it would be easy to continue blogging. Turns out that was not the case. I don’t know if it was a lack of ideas, laziness, or just the fact that I was enjoying that I no longer HAD to blog for class, but for at least one of these reasons the blogging suffered. So I am going to try to revive my blog by doing more book reviews. Hopefully I will be able to get something up every few weeks. Wish me luck! Enjoy!
My favorite used book store in Boulder, Colorado is called The Book Worm. I love this place because it is huge, and because of its size it usually has what I am looking for. Even when I do not find the title I came in for I usually get lost exploring their rows of bookcases that almost touch the ceiling and can sometimes feel like a maze. It is a wonderful place.
My most recent purchase from The Bookworm, was Messenger by Lois Lowry. I do this weird thing where I follow authors, meaning that when I find someone I like to read I try to read as much by them as I can and I also do some research on them in order to better understand who they are and how they write. As a student of creative writing, I find this to be very helpful and eye opening, and sometimes I even find inspiration. Lowry is simply my latest obsession.
I started reading her work about a year ago, when I picked up The Giver because I felt that it was my personal library. I am interested in teaching middle school and The Giver is a book that a lot of middle schoolers read. Also, there was a movie based on the book coming out soon and I wanted to read it before that happened. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It was full of interesting ideas about what it means to have a “perfect” community and what sacrifices people need to make in order to create such a community. If you have not read it, then I strongly suggest it.
The second book I read by Lowry was Gathering Blue, it is a companion book to The Giver, which means that although the books can be read separately, they do connect to with another. I liked this book a lot too. It also focused on the idea of community, however unlike the city in The Giver, this community did not attempt to be perfect, but instead embraced a survival of the fittest mentality. Again Lowry made many interesting observations about what community is and what it needs to work.
The most recent book I read by Lowry was Messenger. This is another companion to The Giver and The Gathering Blue. However, it really helps to have read the other two books first, as many of the characters come back. The theme was again community, however, it looks at how an individual’s actions can impact a community for both better and worse. I highly recommend it.
I have also learned that there is a fourth companion book called Son. I look forward to reading it. (I hope I can find it at the Bookworm).
No Edit
I cant speak for everyone but my experance with dyslexia is that sometimes it feel like the all the word pocesers and all the programs that are suposed to be able to help me with spelling are working against me. Because no matter how many times I try to use spell check it tells me that everything is all good, but then I look a paper over or someone else looks a paper over, and there are spelling mistakes. It is so frustrating!
I did the math, and by the end of tomorrow I will have turned in almost fifty pages of writing to various professors this week. (Also, I believe that the week starts on Monday, so that is fifty pages in two days). I have most of it doen, and have already turned in a twenty three page portfolio for my Intermediat Creative Writing Class, and I am praying that I caught all my mistakes. But as I look over my other papers I beging to see more mistakes and I start doubting that my portfolio was really ready to be tuend in.
So I decided to vent on my bolg. Hopfully this can help teachers understand the frustration that a student with dyslexia can feel as well as let students with dyslexia know that they are not alone.
Also – I wrote this with no editin. Meaning that this is what my fist drafts usually look like – adn then I clean them up later after I have all my ideas down. It is not easy. But at least I am proof that a fist draft can look like this, and the perosn who wrote it can still get an A in a college course.
Good luck on finals everyone!!!
So Maybe We Are All Messed Up
I have been following the riots in Baltimore this week. And although I cannot pretend to be an expert on what is happening there, I have been saddened to see so much destruction and violence. The thing that gets to me the most is that what started as a peaceful protest has become an excuse for violent behavior. I can not understand how torching a building (with people inside) and cutting fire hoses so that the firemen cannot put the fire out will solve anything.
****************************************************************************************************** I would now like to post a disclaimer…. The rest of this post is a reflection on an article by Upworthy, “He Shows How The News Talks About Black People by Talking About White People Instead”. I do not pretend to be an expert on the topics I am writing about, simply expressing my reactions. If you agree, disagree, or think I am out of line, please let me know and (politely) tell me your thoughts and we can help each other understand the crazy world we live in. Thank you. *********************************************************************************As I was looking into these events I came across a video and an article that made me think about how different cultures are portrayed by the media.
The video is a satire, that talks about white culture the same way black culture is depicted in our news. And I think many people would find it shocking. The article that accompanied it gave further evidence that backed up the video, arguing that cultures are treated unfairly in the media.
The evidence looked at headlines and descriptions published in the news concerning events where a black man had been shot by a police officer and events where a white man had committed multiple murders. The articles about police violence would point out that the victim was on drugs, had a history of being abused, or that there had been a warrant out for their arrest. Where white men like James Eagan Holmes, who shot and killed 12 people in Aurora Colorado in 2012, are portrayed as an exceptional science student who had made some poor choices. I’m not saying that these claims are untrue. However, they pad the issue so that the white party does not look so bad.
The point is, people of all races do bad things. And humans like to collect data and try to figure out why people do bad things, in hopes that it will help us stop more bad things from happening. We blame everything from education, social economic status, upbringing, gender, and race. However, this leads to us thinking that bad things only happen to people who belong to this group or that bad things are only done by people who belong to that group. But crime is not limited by black or white culture – because it happens in both, and every other culture if you want to get right down to it. So let’s stop looking at problems as “black culture problems” or “white culture problems” but as American problems.
I am not saying that we should get rid of the idea of black or white culture. One of the things that I like about living in the USA is that we have such a diverse population. Instead, I think that we should celebrate our differences, and try to fix our problems as a nation.
I believe that one of the first steps in doing that realizes how the information we get through the media may not be fair to both sides of the story. If I could teach my students anything, it would be to think how their news, social media, textbooks, and even parents or teachers may not be giving them the whole story. Our nation needs critical thinkers, who decide for themselves instead of being told what to believe.
Drafting Papers is Hard For a Perfectionist – A Rant
So this is a weird semester for me. It is weird because I don’t have any final tests (sounds great right?) instead I have all final papers (not so great).
Don’t get me wrong, I love writing, and I can usually do better on a paper than I can a test. So really this is a good situation for me to be in. The problem is that almost all of my classes these papers have to have at least one draft submitted for peer review/edit. Again, this can only help me.
The problem is I am a perfectionist. Maybe not in the truest sense of the word, as I have been known to make spelling and grammar mistakes, but enough to make handing a draft of my work to someone hard. The thing is, I think of the opportunity of a peer edit as an opportunity to make my best even better, and I always want to walk into class with an awesome draft that just needs to be nit picked. However, this is only possible if I am writing one paper at a time. Now that I have so many papers going at once – a perfect draft is out of the question.
That is really hard for me.
It’s not that I am afraid of critique. I got over that sometime in high school. I just really have a hard time not obsessing over the quality of my drafts. And at the moment I don’t have time for obsession.
To my peer editor today in class thank you, I appreciate your input.
So if you are like me and drafts are difficult, here is a picture of a puppy, I hope it makes everything better!
madaboutwords 