Teaching with Tamara: ELA Edition

  In this book, the Bailey School Kids are holding an election in their class to mimic the current Presidential election. Their teacher assigns them to go listen to the speech of the presidential candidate who is coming to their town. They go and they see him with Mr. Jenkins, a man they believe to be a werewolf. They notice that Mr. Youngblood (the presidential candidate) is very hairy like Mr. Jenkins so he must be a werewolf too. Mr. Youngblood changes the school schedule and the lunch, they think it is dog food. The children hold a protest to make their parents listen but it doesn’t work. At a debate between the two candidates, the students speak up and Mr. Youngblood ends up not getting elected. Some classroom activities that could be done are discussing the Bill of Rights or having the class create a campaign for a cause.

The Bailey School Kids was a really popular book series when I was growing up and it makes my heart so happy that they are being republished! Students were drawn to the older books because the characters were relatable and the books were short. The newly published ones are being made into graphic novels which is even more exciting! Third graders at Bailey Elementary School were getting a new teacher because the class clown and troublemaker, Eddie, drove their other teacher nuts! The principal comes in to introduce their new teacher, Mrs. Jeepers. She had moved from Romania into the creepy house in the neighborhood and had a strange accent. With her glowing green eyes and matching brooch, the group is convinced that she's a vampire!  The book refers to Miss Viola Swamp, which is a character in Miss Nelson is Missing. I read it every year on the first day of school and my students and I make a list of student behaviors that made Miss Swamp show up. I refer back to that lesson the res...

 I had every intention of reading Stella Díaz Has Something to Say by Angela Dominguez this week, but due to a nasty case of the stomach bug, I'm sharing a favorite novel of mine instead.  I first encountered this book in Mrs. Blodgett's eighth grade language arts class and I still remember the experience I had to this day. It spoke straight to my soul. And the ending... Well, it has sparked fury in the hearts and minds of my students as well as my own.  WARNING: IF YOU START READING THIS BOOK, YOU MUST FINISH IT! Nothing but the Truth  is a great way to teach the types of conflict because it is centered around an issue between ninth grader, Phillip Malloy, and his English teacher, Miss Margaret Narwin. Phillip dreams of going out for the track team but cannot because his failing grade in English makes him ineligible. He devises a plan to be switched out of her homeroom and into an “easier” English class. The situation quickly gets out of hand and is soon picked...

In 1921 Pura Belpré leaves San Juan to travel to New York for her sister's wedding. She ends up making it her home.  Pura works in a garment factory at first, but then sees that the library needs a bilingual assistant.  She gets the job and notices that there are no folktales from Puerto Rico. She starts a story hour for the children and lights a candle before she begins. At the end of the story, the children blow out the candle. Pura learns to make puppets too.  She ends up writing her  stories down and mailing them to a publisher.  Soon she is a published author and travels all over planting her story seeds in the hearts and minds of children new to the island of New York. Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré is a great children's book to read aloud as an introduction to the Pura Belpré Award.  The Pura Belpré Award was established in 1996 and is a recognition presented to a Latino or Latina author and illustrator whose work...

 Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut written by Derrick Barnes has been in my classroom library since I first saw it displayed in our school library! I actually read it while my students were selecting their library books haha.  The story is told from the perspective of a pre-teen boy getting his hair cut. The descriptions that Barnes uses are almost poetic. The way he described how confidence from a haircut can make you feel like a whole new person, like royalty, was so heartfelt. This book is a love story to his hair. I have to agree with Barnes when he says how much a good haircut can make someone feel so amazing that it can impact the grade they make on a test. Now, let's look at this from another perspective... what if he had a bad hair day? Maybe he woke up late or his family had to choose between a haircut and paying the electric bill. His day would have still been affected but in a negative way. Imagine a student coming into your class with his hood on, knowing full well th...

Ghost Boys  I'm not sure where to begin with this book... Maybe I should start by saying that African American literature that highlights injustices has always been a favorite of mine because, most of the time, it forces the reader to look at the situation from multiple perspectives. You may go into reading the book with one point of view, but have conflicting feelings by the end of the book. I believe that this is the type of literature we should be exposing America’s youth to because it gives them the opportunity to become empathetic to someone else’s circumstances. It also shows them that there are always two sides to everything and that we shouldn’t be too quick to judge. However, I will note that this isn’t a book I would read in my classroom. If it is shared in the classroom, then it should be with older students, perhaps seventh and up, and there should be explicit written permission from the parents and school administration due to the content. As Kate Messner, the author o...

For my last graphic novel, I listened to the audio version because I kept getting lost when I was reading. For this graphic novel, I wanted to read it in its entirety, but I'm 31 pages into the 136-page book and I already have a headache. I feel like a student who struggles with fluency. Due to the font, I can't tell the difference between a period and a comma, so I keep having to reread the sentences for them to make sense. Also, all the letters in the words being capitalized makes it harder for me to distinguish between the letters. Not to mention the "weird" way it isn't exactly read left to right, depending on how big each picture is. This process has been very confusing, to say the least, but I am going to muster through. I say all of this to ask, did anyone else struggle while reading the graphic novels this week? I definitely have a new respect for people who can read them fluently! It has also given me insight into how incredibly difficult it can be to swi...

Before this assignment, I had never read a graphic novel. Truthfully, I have always found them confusing due to the speech bubbles.  In the book Home Plate Heist , Fernando is a baseball player and the fastest boy on his team. He notices a guy who looks like bad news. It turns out, the guy, Nester, is the pitcher from the team they play next week. The Coach asks Fernando to steal a base to give Nester something to worry about before their upcoming game. He has never done this before, so he is scared and starts to psych himself out. He thinks about it so much that he misses the next player at bat and doesn't run to second like he is supposed to. In the end, Fernando's team wins 9 to 2.  Later that night he has dinner with his family. His family talks to him about his game in a supportive way by asking him what is bothering him. They mention how everyone gets stuck in their head at some point and that making mistakes is part of the game. His whole family goes outside after dinne...

  Eerie Elementary’s The School is Alive is a 90-page chapter book by Jack Chabert. The story has beautiful, black-and-white illustrations throughout the book that help pull the reader in. Sam Graves is the main character who was selected as the school’s hall monitor. Sam didn’t apply for this position, nor did he want it, but the principal had called his mother to tell her he had been chosen. Sam’s friends, Lucy and Antonio, head to class while Sam stays in the hall to perform his duties. He sees a kid outside the door, so he opens the door and hollers at him to get to class. The kid takes off and Sam hangs out for a minute. Suddenly, the sand on the playground turns to quicksand and starts to pull him under. This is the first time Sam experiences the school coming to life. It tries to attack him several times throughout the book, as do some of the items inside it.  I love reading  The School is Alive  with my class around Halloween. It  has great examples of p...

  Ungifted  by Gordon Korman is a great book for anyone, specifically boys in grades 4-7. The main character is Donovan Curtis, a smart-aleck middle-schooler voted Most Likely to Wind Up in Jail. We meet him in detention for broadcasting over the PA system when he was in the office awaiting sentencing for a spitball war. Donovan’s two best friends, the Daniels, help him escape detention which leads to an epic event. “I cocked back the (tree) branch and unloaded a home run swing. The impact vibrated up through my arms to my brain stem, and into every cell of my body. The branch shattered in my hands. I have to say that this was the best part of it for a guy like me—the split second the tomato hits the car; the very brief flight as I drop from the edge of the roof to the pool; the instant that the balloon lifts the toupee and the sun’s rays glint off that shiny bald head. Or in this case, the go-o-ong! Sound from the statue’s bronze behind. The payoff. It was usually downhill fr...

Towers Falling has been on my TBR list for some time now, so finally having an excuse to read it, makes me so happy! Jewell Parker Rhodes wrote this novel; if you haven’t read any of her work, you need to!  The book is centered around a fifth-grade girl, Dèja. She recently moved into a one-bedroom apartment with her parents and two younger siblings at the Avalon Family Residence, a homeless shelter. Her mom works and her dad gets sick a lot, so it is up to Dèja to take care of her little brother and sister by getting them to daycare and picking them up after school. This causes a lot of turmoil between Dèja and her parents. She often thinks her father is faking and silently blames him for her family having to move into the shelter.  Dèja has started a new school due to the move. She meets Ben, a nerdy cowboy who recently moved from Arizona, and Sabeen, a sweet Muslim girl whose family immigrated from Turkey several years prior, in her homeroom. At first, Dèja doesn’t want to ...

     Researching a book for this week's blog was difficult for me. I grappled with using a book with a culturally diverse character or a character that faced adversity due to physical challenges/differences. I found various books, but none made me eager to share with my students until I found Perfectly Norman by Tom Percival and Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña. Perfectly Norman won the battle, but Last Stop on Market Street is also an incredible book.       Perfectly Norman is about a young boy who was perfectly normal until he grew wings. The fantastical aspect of the story takes the pressure off of how his body is different because growing wings isn't something that could realistically happen. Norman wears a coat to cover his wings because he doesn't want anyone to see that he is different than other people. Throughout the story, Norman's coat seems to hold him back from freely being himself. At the end of the book, Norman decides to re...

       Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson is a  wonderful  story for teaching SEL in any  grade from  Kindergarten through upper elementary.  The story is about a little girl, Maya, who is new to the school. The students can tell by her appearance that her family doesn’t have much money. Maya ends up sitting by the young girl who is narrating the story. Maya smiles, but the girl doesn’t smile back. As the weeks go on, Maya continues to reach out to her classmates at recess; they continue to shun her.  One morning, Maya didn’t show up. The teacher, Ms. Albert, holds a lesson about kindness. The narrator realizes she missed out on the opportunity to show kindness to Maya.       One of the moments that spoke to me was when the teacher introduced Maya and asked the class to greet her; most of the class didn’t. This situation speaks volumes about their classroom culture.  If  the teacher had established clear e...

 Lose your memory. Find your life.      Restart by Gordon Korman is a realistic fiction about a middle school-aged boy named Chase Ambrose, who develops amnesia after falling off his roof. The book begins with him in the hospital  unable  to recognize anyone, including his  family,  and  most  astoundingly, himself. Chapter two introduces a new character, Shoshanna Weber, and  is told  from her perspective. She explains how her twin brother, Joel, was sent to a different school, similar to that of a boarding school, due to being bullied by Chase Ambrose and his two friends, Aaron and Bear.       As Chase tries to return to life as it was, he starts to question who he is.   He knows that he’s a jock, but why would that make other students run when they see him coming?  At lunch on his first day back to school, Chase mistakenly sits at a table with Brenden Espinoza instead of with his football ...