Author Profile

Captain Nobody

by Dean Pitchford

ISBN: 9780399250347

Newt Newman is a boy who has never felt extrordinary. Him and his friends are virtually invisible while his brother Chris is the star athlete. His brother gets hurt at a game and goes into acoma. To escape from what is going on Newt gets dressed up for Halloween as a made up superheroe called Captain Underpants. His costume gives him the confidence he never had before.

One Small Step

by P.B. Kerr

ISBN: 9781416942139
In 1968 Scott MacLeod's parents split up. He went to live with his dad in Texas who was a flight instructor and his dad passed onto Scott his love of flying. They got into a terrible plane accident and almost died until Scott saved them with his flying skills. His skills gave him attention from NASA and they hired him to take a top secret trip to the moon.

Heat

by Mike Lupica

ISBN: 0142407577

Michael Arroyo is a 13 year old Cuban American orphan growing up in the Bronx. He is a baseball star in his Little League team that has made it to the Little League World Series that is going to be at Yankee Stadium. He desperately wants to play but a coach on the other team questions whether Michael is really the appropraite age and he can't play until he gets his Cuban birth certificate without people finding out him and his older brother are without parents.

Genre Projects

The presentations today were pretty interesting. I liked how during the first presentation they had the illustratrions big on the projection screen so we could see them as the story was going on. The pot was also a neat idea to get an understanding of what the students consider to be integrity,
I also really liked the book Pink and Say. I am going to put that on my list of books to buy. It was interesting and really sad. Both of them were really good friends and loyal to each other. The book was about the Civil War but focused more on the story of the two friends and the fear they had during that time. I can definetaly see myself reading it to middle school students.

Author Profile

Because of Twilight and the popularity of vampires at the moment I decided to do my author profile on some vampire books for teens. All of these books are the first in a series and can be used to grab the attention of older readers.

Vampire Kisses

By Ellen Schreiber

ISBN: 9780061778940

When a new hansome and mysterious neighbor moves to town everyone is curious about him. He becomes friends with a vampire obsessed outsider named Raven who discovers there is some unusual things about him including him being a vampire.

Bloodline
By Kate Cary

ISNB: 1595140786

This book takes place during about WWI. It tells the story of Mary who was a nurse reading to her patient John Saw from his journal while he was in the hospital. His journal entries tell about his sister Lily meeting and falling in love with his captain Quincy Harker and they return to Harker's home in Romania to be married. It is there that strange secrets start coming out and Lily is faced with the choice to die or live forever as a vampire.

Marked

By P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
ISBN: 9780312360269

This book is about a world where vampires exist and are accepted by humans. If a human is "marked" by a vampire they have to enter a special school called House of Night. During this time their body decides if it is going to accept the change or not. It it doesn't accept the change than they die. Zoey Redbird is an outsider with big dreams and is excited to have been marked. The story follows her going to a new school and seeeing it isn't much different than her previous one. It also follows her romantic life and whether she should be with Erik the popular boy or her exboyfriend Heath all while dealing with the development of her new vampire powers. Be careful recommending this book for younger readers because it does have curse words and sexual references.

Author Profile

Louis Sachar

Louis Sachar is a children's author who has previously won the newbery medal. He bases his characters on himself and the people he know's. Some of the books he has written are Holes, Small Steps, and There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom.

http://www.louissachar.com/

Sideways Stories from Wayside School
by Louis Sachar

ISBN: 0380731487

This book contains thirty short tales about the student's and faculty at Wayside School. Wayside school is a school that was built sideways. Instead of being a one story building with thirty classrooms the builder made it thirty stories high with one class on each story. These stories are silly and appeal to a child's sense of humor. For example, in the story of the mean teacher Mrs. Gorf she wiggles her ears and turns her students into apples. In an ironic turn of events she ends up turning herself into an apple and gets eaten by one of the other teachers.

Wayside School is Falling Down
By Louis Sachar

ISBN: 0688078680

Thirty silly stories from Wayside School. I used to read these stories as a kid and I loved them. They are goofy and imaginative. In one of th stories a student named Sherie bring a homeless person to school for show and tell. In another tale it tells about the yard man Louis carrying a computer up thirty stories to get to Mrs. Jewis' class just so she can throw it out the window to teach about gravity.

Presentations

Today my group and another group did our genre presentations. I thought our presentation on the sun and the moon went well. I was both happy and sad to have presented. I was happy to have finished the project and now I get time to concentrate on my other schoolwork however, I am sad to be done with it because my group and I spent so much time preparing for it and while I was stressed out I did have a blast doing it. I am happy with the way it come out and have recieved positive feedback from my classmates in the audience.
I also thought the other presentation went really well. I like the book on recycling they used. The format of presenting the book on dvd with music was really neat and grabbed my attention. It hooked the reader much more than if it was a simple book reading. I can also see a teacher having the students doing some of the sorting activities they showed us with the recycling products.

Author Websites

Here are some author websites to check out
Junie B. Jones books- www.randomhouse.com/kids/junieb/

Captain Underpants books- www.scholastic.com/captainunderpants/

Children's Authors- www.childrensliteraturenetwork.org

Author Profile

Word Wizard

By: Cathryn Falwell

We read this book in Dr. Ferguson's class today and I wanted to mention it because it is a really cute book for young students who are practicing manipulating words and combining letters. It is about a girl named Anna who rearranging the letters in words to make new words. This book can be easily incorporated into lessons about manipulating letters to make different words. The bright colors and illustrations keep the story entertaining for the students.




Turtle Splash! Countdown at the Pond


By: Cathryn Falwell


This book is meant for young elementary students. In the picture book the turtles and some other outdoor animals are hanging around a pond. One at a time as a new creature comes into the picture the turtle jumps into the water. On the side of the page it shows the number of turtles that are left. In the end it shows all the turtles underwater in the pond. The last few pages of the book it also has some brief information about the animals mentioned. This book can be used for a lesson in counting bakwards as well as an introductory nature lesson.

I also found a website for Cathryn Falwell who wrote and illustrated these books. She has also written some other children's book geared mostly for kids under age 8. Her kids section is neat and has fun projects for kids to print out and make.

http://www.cathrynfalwell.com/

Chapters 10 & 11

Ch. 10 Reading Aloud
Contrary to what some teachers think read alouds are appropriate for students of all ages. I know that personally even though I am a college student I still like being read a story in class. My social studies instructor reads to us occasionally and even at our age we get entertained. However read alouds aren't used just for entertainment but learning as well. Read alouds get students intrested in literature and reading as well as encouraging comprehension and expanding their vocabularies. It is important for the teacher to practice a good read aloud which entails sitting on the carpet with the students and being animated. While reading the story us different voices and accentuate words and expressions to keep the students interested. Jennifer Myers does a good example of a shared reading.

Ch. 11 Shared and Guided Reading
Shared reading is a collaborative reading activity involving both the students and teacher. Shared reading has two purposes. First it provides an enjoyable literacy experience and second it show how print works. In order to participate in shared reading the class should have active student participation, a variety of books, and a comfortable learning environment. When planning a lesson for shared reading keep in mind the needs of the students, the curriculum and the kinds of text that is needed to accomplish your goals.
Guided reading is done with small groups of students reading the same books and using the same reading strategies. The goal of guided reading is to get the students to be capable of using reading strategies easily on their own without help. When using guided reading lessons it is important to strategically group the students. Groups should be based on the students' reading level but teachers need to keep in mind that these groups shouldn't be permanent. Guided reading groups should change as students are matstering and struggling with new topics. You don't want to group students by ability and then leave them in the same group permanetly because then lower students will feel they will never catch up to the higher students.

Shared Reading Article

I read the shared reading article on BlackBoard I think it was pretty interesting and I agreed with mostly all of what it said. The goal of shared reading is to allow students positive reading experiences with books as well as to introduce them to different types of literature and authors. Shared reading shouldn't be teacher centered but rather made up of contributions from both the student and teacher. It is not shared reading if the the students aren't actively involved in the reading process.
As soon as children are introduced to books they want to learn how to read independently. It is only when they have difficulties with the subject that they sometimes become less interested in learning to read.
It is also important as the article said to have a variety of books available and encourage the students to have favorite books that can be read multiple times. Personally I think the classroom library is the most important part of the classroom. Having a classroom library with a mixture of good books motivates students and encourages them not only to read but to want to read.

Author Profile

Bruce Balan

Bruce Balan is a author of mostly children's books. On his website you can contact him to make a visit to your school and sign books. He also does many conferences. His site has some information on the books he has written as well as books he is currently writing.

http://www.brucebalan.com/

Cows Going Past
By: Bruce Balan

ISBN: 0803729022

Cows Going Past is a book for preschoolers where a child in the backseat describes a family trip through what he sees in the back seat window. Once he arrives back in his bed at home his mind is still thinking about all the cows he has seen.

Buoy Home at Sea

By: Bruce Balan

This is a book made up of a collection of stories about three friends name Buoy, Gull and Seal who live at sea. This book is for older elementary students. It is about a buoy at sea that is written about as having humanistic traits along with the sea and sea animals. It makes the reader think aboout the definition of friendship and home as well as how all everyone is interconnected.

Guided Reading

I found an informative teacher resource book about guided reading by Fountas & Pinnell. It includes information on what is a guiding reading program as well as how to use it in your classroom and what books you should choose. It also has a leveled booklist with hundreds of books that are already sorted out by level.

Guided Reading by Irene C. Fountas & Gay Su Pinnell
ISBN: 0435088637





I also found some good guided reading websites:

http://www.readinga-z.com/guided/index.html
http://teacher.scholastic.com/reading/bestpractices/guidedreading.htm

Jennifer Myers Read Aloud

The read aloud with Jennifer Myers was really good. You can tell she is an excellent teacher. The only part I didn't like about her read aloud was that she was sitting in a chair above the students. Besides that it was an excellent read aloud lesson. The students seemed to be comfortable and enjoyed both her reading and the book itself. She has a very nice story voice. She paused at the appropriate times to maintain the flow of the story. The students were attentative and responsive to her questions. I liked her idea of having a shoulder partner for the students to talk with. I think that was a neat way for them to share ideas. Overall I think Jennifer Myers showed an excellent example of what a read aloud should look like.