Twilight

I had already seen the movie for "Twilight", so already had an idea of what to expect in the story. I still enjoyed the book, and had it read in a couple days. It's, or course, a typical love story, with some twists.
Obviously we know that most students are very into these novels. I have to say, however, that I was one of those students who wasn't into the latest series that was out. I remember in High School, all my friends discussing Harry Potter. It was something I just never got into. The same goes for Twilight. It wasn't something that stuck out to me. I think that is something that we have to remember when thinking about using this in a classroom. Although it may seem that most teens are into it, not all of them are.
Before reading the article, I would have said that I probably wouldn't have taught this in my classroom. To me, it didn't seem like there was too much to get out of it other than pure enjoyment. However, I thought the article brought some interesting insights as to how a teacher could use this in a classroom. Rewriting parts of the story, using their own imaginations, I thought, was something that was very interesting. Looking at character development was something else that I thought would be neat to look at. Show students how the characters are described, and what their descriptions could say about other hidden information about them.
I teachers would have to be careful when teaching this novel, though. Since a lot of students have already read it, they may feel inclined to not read it again. Or you could have the students who watch the movie instead (which I know can happen with other novels too). I think we would need to encourage them to read it again, so that they can follow along with what the rest of the class is discussing. They may have missed something that the teacher would like to discuss when they read it for the first time by themselves.
Another thing with this novel, just like Book Thief, is the length. This is not a short novel, and it would take a long time to cover the whole thing. I know we said that for Book Thief, we could just focus on certain parts. Could we do that with Twilight?

Teacher Inquiry Project : Teaching Textbooks

My project discusses the idea of whether or not basil textbooks should be used in a classroom. Several questions that I asked myself about this topic are:
1. How are students able to grasp the concepts of stories when there are only small pieces of the story in the textbook?
2. Would students rather read from a textbook or from novels and handouts?
3. Is teaching through these books a successful way of getting certain points across to students?
4. do these textbooks cover what students will actually need to know in their lives (good reading and writing skills)?
These questions a general view of what I have been thinking about for my project.
I have found several articles that will help my with their research project, including:
1. The Textbook: Aid or Hindrance to Modern Language Teaching
2.The Trouble With Textbooks: A View from the Profession
3. The Textbook Canon: Genre, Gender, and Race in US Literature
*I might also use the book "In The Middle" for this paper, as well.
I am interested in researching this topic, because I know how I felt about textbooks in school. They were so big and heavy to carry around all the time and the stories in them were not very interesting. I was someone who loved to read in school, but I hated reading from those books, because most of the time, the stories that we read were only short pieces to whole story. After we would finish reading, we would answer the questions at the back of the book and turn them in for homework. I didn't find this to be effective and helping me to learn how to write and analyze a piece of literature at all. I enjoyed reading novels and complete short stories, because I would actually know what was going on and I would be able to understand it better.
I know that there are other people who feel the same way, but I also know that there are people out there who defend teaching from textbooks. I am excited to see what I can find. Of coarse there is not definate right or wrong answer, but I'm curious to see if there is more of a pull to one side or the other. It will be interesting to see.

Persepolis

I just finished reading Persepolis, I an enjoyed it. I like reading stories (or watching movies) that are based on true stories, or someone's life.
I like that this book shows the viewpoint of people from the middle east. Especially with what is happening today, I think that some people assume that all middle easterns' are bad. This book give us a view of what they have to go through when their country is at war. It reminded me of The Book Thief because it is seen through the eyes of the people that are usually generalized as the bad people.
I think this book could be beneficial in a classroom, especially today, because it would give students a different perspective. Since it is another graphic novel, I think that a lot of students would enjoy reading it. There are many issues in this novel that could be worth discussing. Although the United States is not mentioned much, we can see some pretty strong feelings towards the country (and western civilizations in general). That could be an interesting discussion.