Final Posts

Hey all, Jordan here. Sorry for the lateness but I have been flat out like a lizard drinking. Here are my final posts for the blog all in one.

I have read two novels since I last wrote. The first is the final installation in the Harry Potter series called The Deathly Hallows and the other is called Misery Guts by Morris Gleitzman. I have also read six picture books. These being the Ugly Duckling, Glub the Baby Dinosaur, A Sea Full of Sharks, Creatures of the Great Barrier Reef, Dinosaurs and Dr. Suess's ABC.

As mentioned above this book is the final one in the Harry Potter Series and in my opinion the best. It is action filled with twists around every corner that keep the reader always interested. By far the best part of the book is the fight between Harry and Lord Voldemort at the end in the Great Hall. In this part Rowling has used amazing descriptions to keep the reader entertained. The book is written from a first person view coming from the main character Harry. By doing this the reader really relates to the main character and can familiarize themselves with him.

Misery Guts is a book by Morris Gleitzman that follows the life of a young boy who is constantly trying to make his unhappy parents happy. The only problem is he fails miserably. After various attempts to make his parents happy he finally convinces them that they will be happy if they move to Australia. But does it work?
This book is great for children because there is good use of describing words but no real descriptions of any characters to the reader has to use their imagination to decide what the characters look like. The style of writing used is also very sarcastic and informal.

The Ugly Ducking is a classic story that tells about the life of a young duck who is excluded from the group because he looks different. Only to discover later in the book that he is not a ugly duck, but rather a beautiful swam. This is a very good book and children who are of younger ages will always enjoy reading this. The writing is very simplistic so that the reader can understand what is going on easy and the pictures are will illustrated to keep children interested.

Glub the Baby Dinosaur is the story of a caveman who accidentally kicks an egg thinking its a rock. But after the egg starts to act strangely realizes it is an egg not a rock. At first Glub lives in the gave but he gets to big and Trevor the caveman has to go out and look for Glubs Mum. After a while they fall down a ravine and into some slush which they get stuck in, but what will happen next? This story is rather entertaining and kept me interested through the whole thing. A part of the book which interested me was that they put every dinosaur name in bold and them at the back had a section on how to pronounce the names. I found this helpful as some of the names were very hard to pronounce.

A Sea Full of Sharks is a picture book but also a non-fiction book that tells the reader about different sharks. There are over 350 different kinds of sharks of many shapes and various sizes. This book includes up to date information about sharks and offers a new way of thinking about thanks in their natural environment. In the book it gives diagrams of a shark, shark eggs and shark teeth. The book will be good for children in year 4-6 who are interested in sharks as it gives them good information about different sharks that is easy to read and very understandable.

I couldn't source a picture of the Creatures of the Great Barrier Reef because every time I searched for it I got random pictures of sea creatures. In this book there is a small description of the animal and then it asked the question of who am I? then there is a fold out section where you open it up and there is a picture of the animal their with a small description and a few facts about the creature. This book is particularly interesting because not only does it have the animals everyone knows like sharks but it also has animals like puffer fish and mantra rays which students wouldn't know that much about. This is a very interesting book and children in primary school will thoroughly enjoy it.

This book is a pop up book that on each page a picture of a different dinosaur appears and has a short description of  under it. In the description it tells us what period they were from, what they looked like and a short paragraph about the dinosaur. This book would be good for students of all ages because in the younger years the teacher can read them to book and the student would be interested by the pictures. However, in the older years the students can read the book for themselves and them enjoy the pictures as well.

ABC by Dr. Seuss is a very interesting book. On each double page is a different letter of the alphabet with words that start with that letter. The first page says big A little a what begins with A? and so on for the next letter. For some of the letters there are just words that start with the letter but on some pages there are tongue twisters. One of the more interesting tongue twisters in the book that I found was Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo. When reading this book children of young ages will find you messing words up funny but you can also give the students an opportunity to read the pages themselves and see if they can say the tongue twisters.

Week 9 - The Magic of Reality

Hello there!

The final book I read and would like to talk about, while not actually being a narrative story as such, is Richard Dawkins The Magic of Reality. This book was a gift given to me on my birthday and is a perfect example of literature that could be utilised in the classroom. The point of the book is to educate people on the magic of what surrounds us, focusing specifically on what is scientifically known and looking at its beauty. There is a certain possibility and poetry to the way science is presented in this story, giving explanations of facts unknown or clarifying folklore. A great example of this would be the discussion of how everything really began, looking at the galaxy and giving pictures to display the vastness of space. This leads onto various topics in the book, spanning from temperature that sustains life to the ever lingering question "Are we alone?". While these questions are never specifically answered, they are given explanation and to some degree are scientifically justified.

Through this aspect, Richard Dawkins allows the reader to feel as though their prior opinion doesn't matter anymore, giving way to this new lot of information and perspective. This is truly valuable since all of the literature in the book is completely true. The pictures also help to fill in the gaps of everything that might not be fully understood by the readers on some parts, and reinforces other aspects as well. Dave McKean is able to convey the type of topic that is being discussed, be it fantastical or fact, and create images that are specific to each part.
This book could be used in a classroom for a multitude of purposes. One of which would be reading out loud to the entire class with the structure of the story allows it to feel more natural and relaxed. This aspect is what would also make it beneficial for students to read by themselves, having it being a higher level of reading with more adult like pictures.

Thank you for reading my posts on literacy and I hope you've enjoyed reading about these books and learnt a thing or two about how to use them in a classroom.

Week 8 - Are You There God? It's Me Margaret

Hello there!

So this week I read a book recommended to me by an avid reader called Are You There God? It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume. It is categorised as a young adult or teenage right of passage book, telling the story of a sixth grade girl, Margaret, who grew up without a religious affiliation and is trying to find her personal beliefs in the world. This is made difficult by Margaret's mother being Christian and her father being Jewish. The novel follows her journey through both of these religions and prompt the themes of mixed heritage while also having many pre-teen female issues such as buying her first bra and jealousy.

For a school project, Margaret is assigned an independent study where she focuses on people's beliefs. This study is mirrored by her discovery of her own personal beliefs and about her trouble believing in God.The added pressure from her disagreeing families also adds more problems onto her trouble with her maternal grandparents trying to guarantee her Christianity. Her paternal grandmother seems more accepting of who Margaret, however she refers to her as "my Jewish girl" and introduces her to Jewish type religious practises, later saying she always knew she was more Jewish than Christian. After a fight held between a girl at school, Margaret visits a church confessional booth, the unseen priest enquires her problems but since Margaret does not know of the confession concept, believes God himself is talking to her.

This book would be better suited to older readers, probably in year 5 - 7, depending on reading ability, but displays a lot of themes and problems that would be relevant to those in these year levels. The writing style and Judy Blume's ability to portray her thoughts through her use of descriptive words comes across as being very passionate. Although the book was written in the 1970's, it still holds much of it's themes as a common thought for most people today and would be valuable in not only helping students to better their literacy skills but also allowing them to sort through their own personal beliefs. 

The next and final book I will be reading and posting on here will be The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins.

Until next time.

Laura - The Dog Stole my Brain, The Case of the Missing Banana and Driving the Fishy Frog

Hey guys,

Here is my post for this week.

THE DOG STOLE MY BRAIN

The novel ‘The Dog Stole My Brain’ by Katherine and Mary K. Pershall is about a boy named Jake who tries to avoid Debbie and Skye, the school bullies, at all costs. He comes across a website that tell you how to swap brains with someone as long and both people agree. Jake just wants to swap brains with someone in school who doesn’t get bullied, but after an unfortunate event, he finds himself swapping brains with his dog, Barney. The story follows the two characters on their journey before, while and after their brains are swapped. In the end, both Jake and Barney decide that it’s best to stand up and be yourself in difficult situations instead of trying to ignore or avoid it.

I found this story really interesting because it is written in first person point of view, so you can understand and relate to what the character is going through, but after every chapter the point of view changes from Jake’s to Barneys and back again. The author conveys well in the beginning of each chapter whose point of view it is in and what the situation is.

THE CASE OF THE MISSING BANANA

‘The Case of the Missing Banana’ by Matthew Ryan is a very simple picture book for young children. The story is about a character, Patrick, who has lost his banana. Most of the sentences in the book are questions and expressive sounds. In order to find the missing banana the characters in the book retrace Patrick’s steps throughout the day. After going through his whole day Patrick remembers that he ate the banana in the kitchen at lunchtime. In the end they found the missing banana (in his tummy) and solved the mystery.

The text is very simple with many sight words in it. It really gets the reader involved by asking questions. The images are simple and bright to catch the reader’s attention. There’s only one sentence per page and the images match up each sentence. The theme of the story follows The Quest. The whole story revolves around finding the missing banana and in the end, when they find the answer they were looking for, there was a happy ending.   

DRIVING THE FISHY FROG

Driving the Fishy Frog’ by James Moloney is a children’s novel about a family staying at their Grandfather’s house by the beach for the summer. The main characters in this story are brothers, Ben and Ash. They call their Grandfather’s Landrover  ‘The Fishy Frog’ because of its colour and one morning the boys and their Grandfather take it out to go fishing. When no one else was around, Grandfather taught Ash to drive, he wasn’t very good at it but it was fun. Later on in the story they go camping o a beach and they come across a sea snake. Their Grandfather gets bitten on his foot and it starts to swell up, he becomes unconscious and can’t give the boys any help. The rest of their story is about the two brothers trying to find help for their Grandfather. In the end, they can find anyone close by, so they decide to drive him back home. They come across many obstacles on the way home but they found out that they could overcome any obstacle by working together, instead of fighting.

The book focuses around the theme of teamwork. The two brothers wouldn’t have been able to gat as far in the journey as they had without teamwork. They cooperate, work together and share ideas all in the hope to save their Grandfather. This novel gives great descriptive passages so the reader can visualise the characters and scenes well. It is set in third person point of view, goring to great detail for the characters expressions and actions.  The set up of this story has the usual introduction, complication and resolution.

Week 8 - The Waterhole

Hello there!

Ryan here, this time I read The Waterhole by Graeme Base which is basically a fusion of a counting book, puzzle book, storybook and art book. It depicts a gathering of animals by a waterhole, with basic counting being the primary educational aspect of the book. An example would be 1 Rhino, 2 Tigers, 3 Tucans etc, etc. The story then counts in reverse, focusing on the same concept just in a different layout. Another layer of this picture book, a more simplistic approach, would be the shapes and colours of the animals, focusing on the visual element of the book. With this aspect, hidden animals are found in every page, enabling readers to discover them as a visual challenge and giving hints about what animal it is in the text. Another layer to the visual aspect is a clue to what location each page is based in, having an identifiable icon somewhere in the picture, giving a sort of natural history lesson. With all of these layers and aspects, the waterhole displays a message of the animals over consuming and drinking too much water, giving a metaphore for the worlds need to consume all resources in the world. Frogs are the main instigation of this, showing them as a sort of "Canary in the coldmine" type of character. When they vanish from the story, it is an indiciation of how bad things are getting.

Down to the secret waterhole the animals all come,
As seasons bring forth drought and flood, they gather there as one.
United in their common need, their numbers swell to ten,
But hidden deep amongst the trees lie ten times that again!

This book could be used with many differeng ages of children due its ability to portray various themes to various different age and level groups. It would be a very valuable teaching resource and give the ability to be used in various contexts. 

The next book I will be reading is called Are You There God? It's Me Margaret by Judy Bloom.

Until next time.

Week 9- Looking for Alibrandi, The Little Refugee & Home and Away

Hi guys, Julia here for the final time!

Today I’m writing up about a novel I read in year 7 called Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta. Basically the novel is about a young adolescent girl called Alibrandi. She is finishing her last year of primary school at St Martha’s and she is experiencing many issues around her cultural background, family and relationships (with friend and boyfriends). It is a great story that takes the readers through many teenage issues but ends with a happier ending where Alibrandi finally accepts her ethnic background, being proud to be an Italian-Australian.

The novel uses simple language and short sentence structure. It is admirable for upper primary school students as it covers many issues teenagers face in today’s society. It is also in first person meaning that the author can really get inside the main characters head and talk on behalf of her (learnt this in lecture 2).

Themes covered in the novel included relationships between mother and daughter, feeling out of place, relationships with boys and loss. It is a great text that I would explore with my students because it talks about important issues from a teenagers point of view.

Next I’ve read the picture book The Little Refugee by Anh Do and Suzanne Do. This book is absolutely fantastic as it talks about the journey of a refugee family from a child’s perspective. It is about a family fleeing from Vietnam during a time of war. It follows their boat trip and their experiences once living safely in Australia. I am reading this book to my students on placement because I am teaching Refugees as a topic. They are in year 3 and this book is very appropriate because it is simply written, it has great imagery and it is not violent or inappropriate at all. It is a great teacher resource that is an e-book in the Uni library!

My last book is also another book about refugees but it is more suitable for an older audience (year 7’s up to year 12’s!). It’s called Home and Away by John Marsden. If you were at the lecture in week 2 I think you might remember this book as it was talked about in relation to the author study. Basically it is about a very ‘normal’ family who suddenly become refugees when their country becomes part of the war. They are forced to flee their country to find safety and experience many horrific things along their way to a better place. However, once at this better place the members of the family who are still alive find out that they are in fact outcasts and not welcome. It is a fantastic story in teaching the hardships of being a refugee. It focuses not only on their journey but their treatments in places like Australia where they are put into concentration camps. The books images are so powerful. They (like what we learnt in lecture 3 [I think]) tell another story to what the author is writing. For example, the first few pages when the family are safe in their own home are written in a typed text. As the war begins, this typing turns into writing on a note pad, and as the families situation gets worse the writing becomes messier and on scrappier pieces of paper. This technique of imagery shows the readers the situation the family are in. It shows the lack of resources they have and this writing along with the pictures show the emotions the characters are feeling. Home and Away is a great picture book. If you ever need to teach refugees to older students I recommend it 100%!!

That’s the final post of my blog guys!

I’m off to Bali in the second week of the holidays so I will reply to any comment when I return.

Have a safe break :)

Laura - Toy Story 3, Eyes Knows and Run, Kid, Run!

Hey,
Here is my post for this week,

TOY STORY 3

The Novel ‘Toy Story 3 – The Junior Novelisation’ adapted by Jasmine Jones is the next book I analysed. This book is the written form of the movie and it follows the very familiar characters through their journey.

I chose this book because I think it would be interesting to see children read it and watch them movie, and then see what they absorb from them. The children may enjoy the movie more but understand the book better or vice versa. The novel offers more insight to what the characters are thinking and feeling through thorough descriptions and detailed expressive phrases.

The only pictures to provide images of the characters are on the front cover. To fond out more about the characters, children need to read and understand the text. This novel is written in third person point of view so it can jump between scenes with different characters and situations instead of following one single character through a journey.

EYES KNOWS

I chose the novel ‘Uncollected’ by Paul Jennings. This is a novel made up of short stories that are written to entertain. The story I focused on in this book is called ‘Eyes Knows’. It is a story about a boy named Harry who is told by his parents that they are getting a divorce. They want him to choose who he wants to stay with and he doesn’t want to choose one parent over the other. Harry finds a small robot toy with a set of red eyes and a set of green eyes that light up. Throughout the day, Harry asks the little robot questions and the robot responds to it either positively, with green eyes, or negatively, with red eyes. In the end, Harry gets into trouble and gets so frustrated that he throws the robot out the window. His parents decide to live close to each other and he spends time with both of them. Later on, the robot is found with one red eye and one green eye glowing.

‘Eyes Knows’ is written in first person point of view. This allows the reader to understand what the character is thinking and feeling. Because it is written through a character’s point of view, only language that suits the character can be used. Also, this means that the story is restricted to only that characters experiences and emotions.

Although it is a fairly short story, ‘Eyes Knows’ is still structured with an introduction, complication and resolution. The introduction is fairly short as there is only one main character. The main body, the complication, takes up most of the story and the resolution is short and simple.

RUN, KID, RUN!

‘Run, Kid, Run!’ by Andrew Daddo is set during the school holidays in the local TV station. The two main characters, Harrison and Jess, who are brother and sister, are spending the day there while their mother is working. There are no kids allowed at the station so they had to sneak in and avoid being seen by the security guards. They meet some celebrities, get chased by security guards and get lost back stage while their Mum is working. To stay away from security guards they find themselves in the prop room and they dress up in disguise. After being chased by the security guards through many rooms, they end up in the producer office. The put on a giant act, pretending that they were meant to be there and the producer liked their characters so much he wanted to make a TV show with them in it.

The scenes in this book are set very well through the tone of the characters and the descriptions of the backgrounds. Throughout the course of the story the two main characters, Harrison and Jess, meet many characters and every character is provided with a detailed description so that the reader can visualise them well. This is a long picture book wit many sentences per page. The images on every page offer only a glimpse into the story line. To understand the story the reader cannot just look at the images. ‘Run, Kid, Run!’ is a great book for children who want to escape into a world with celebrities, chases and disguises.

 That's it for me this week!

Laura