Lesson 2: Working with the Frameworks

[Becky Schaller]

I have to admit, I'm too far behind to write this as a workable lesson for a Ning study group. If anyone else has an idea, please tell us what you'd like for us to do here.

[Kelly Wood]

Lesson 2, ex. 1 doesn't really work for us since we're all over the place!! (Do you all agree, or is there some way to modify ex. 1 so it works for us?)

Lesson 2, ex. 2: Here's an idea to modify what's in the lesson. Why don't we jot down actual RA convos we've had w/ our kids where we've tried to give read-alikes and either succeeded or "failed" (meaning the kid didn't like the recommendation--not that WE somehow failed!)?

Here are a few just to get the ball rolling. To start, I'll just leave the situations unresolved to see what everyone recommends, then later I can add what I actually did recommend if that's appropriate! :) Anyone else who shares a situation can either say what they did or just leave it open so others can respond.

1. A pretty sophisticated 6th-grade reader came in saying he'd enjoyed The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer and wanted another sci-fi or other similarly challenging and thought-provoking story. One caveat: he wasn't comfortable w/ His Dark Materials b/c of what he'd heard about Pullman's atheism.

2. I have a whole passel of 4th- and 5th-grade girls who I've been able to sell on Sharon Creech and Deborah Wiles. They read everything these two fabulous ladies put out then come back asking for more books in the same vein.

3. A girl going into 4th grade struggles with reading. I'd say her ability is average, but mainly she just can't seem to find anything that really appeals to her. I had some success setting her up w/ the Babymouse books, the Marissa Moss Amelia journals, Owly books, and Robot Dreams. (The latter two are wonderful wordless graphic novels.) She liked Shiloh when her teacher read it aloud but couldn't be persuaded to pick up the sequels. She accepted nonfiction books on gymnastics and animals, but I got the impression from her mom that she mainly just looked at the pictures.

4. A boy going into 4th grade finds reading a bit harder than the girl mentioned in #3. If his mom didn't practically force him, he just wouldn't do it. The parents have subscribed to kids' magazines to try to get him interested, buy books, and have lots of print in the home. He did respond well to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Kinney and the Just series by Griffiths (Just Joking, Just Annoying, Just Stupid, etc.). I think he may have picked up the Bone series by Smith as well.

[Becky Schaller]

Kelly, I like the idea of taking books that the students are reading and thinking about other books we might recommend for them. I'd like to suggest that we take this exercise a little slower. So first we'd write down as many of the appeal elements as we can for any of the books you mentioned. We can go with any of the categories mentioned in lesson 1. Then we see what books we'd recommend based on the appeal factors. I think it might help us to take these exercises in smaller steps. How does that sound to you?
Becky

[Kelly Wood]

Definitely. Sounds good.

[Kelly Wood]

Lesson 2, ex. 4: Here's another idea. Why don't we just help one another find good readalikes that fit our own frameworks and favorite stories/authors? (Using our students' favorites would work, too, to put it in context.) We need to consider the frameworks listed in the lesson and may even have to look up a few of the books on Amazon or NoveList if we're not familiar with them. Then we'll have a sense of what kinds of elements they have and can make recommendations based on that.

If each one of us posts 5 books or types of book we or our students have loved, the rest of us can provide suggestions! Here are mine. I look forward to seeing everyone's suggestions and making suggestions to each of you... but don't give too many awesome recommendations or my reading list will get too long! Ha ha! :)

1. The steampunk sub-genre, especially Philip Reeve's Larklight series and the Fullmetal Alchemist manga series
2. The 13th Tale by Diane Setterfield
3. The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series
4. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
5. Books that incorporate graphic elements with regular text, like The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Selznick or the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Kinney

[Elisabeth LeBris]

Hi Kelly and Becky,
I like the open convos. below. So I'll just dive in here. On #1 I might have recommended Service or Sleator as possible authors to look at and put out a few titles with boys as main characters (there are quite a few) but a possible read-around might be to suggest more titles by Farmer, such as Sea of Trolls.

[Kelly Wood]

Great recommendations. I have some other boys who have loved Service. I'll look into Sleator's titles to see if any of those would have been good for him. :)