Laurie Halse Anderson made my student's day

Last night I sent a message to author Laurie Halse Anderson on Twitter that looked like this




When I checked my twitter feed at lunch I had this waiting for me in my mentions




Naturally, I had to share this with my student. She smiled so hard that I thought her face might break. I appreciate that Anderson took the time to send me back that message. It made my student's day. And mine.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Rough Start

Last week was the first week of school, and the first time we've ever started on a Monday. In previous years, we started on Wednesday or Thursday--two or three days to get to know the students, then the weekend and Deming Duck Races, then we'd hit the ground running the next Monday. Everyone felt like the week was a little long. It didn't help that all the housekeeping type items that had to be completed were completed during first period.

Despite ongoing internet problems, it is very exciting that so many of my students are excited about the books they're reading. Almost all of them have selected books out of my personal library. I admit that there are some books I was more excited about students reading than others -- I think there are four students reading Patrick Carman's Skeleton Creek, and three reading his novel Trackers, drawn in by the fact that there are videos. Others are reading Shusterman, Anderson (both MT and Laurie Halse) and a myriad of other books on a myriad of topics. The neatest thing is to see one student lean over to another during independent reading and point to something in the book they're reading, then look to see if they'll get in trouble for talking. I encourage this kind of interaction. I want my students to talk about books, not just with me, but with their peers as well. And it has already begun.

I do hope that the server problems, particularly in the afternoon, are resolved. Because I teach the Title I Language Arts class, there are some requirements must make sure my students meet, like using the Scholastic READ180 program so the powers that be have the ability to pull student reports to monitor progress. I also hope that this week passes with less frustration than last week did.

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I usually don't like historical fiction. There was something, though, about Anderson's storytelling that drew me into this story. Chains is set during the Revolutionary War in New York. The protagonist, Isabel, is a slave in the household of a family of British supporters. Throughout the novel she deals with the loss of family, trying to decide which side of the war supports her best interests (I never thought about the role slaves played in the war), and gaining her freedom. The second part of the story is told in the novel Forge, which I'll be adding to my to-read list soon.

View all my reviews >>

I Must Be Doing Something Right

The last grading period this semester my students participated in book groups. They used Edmodo to converse with students in other classes and completed imaginative response projects as a way to respond to their reading. In my morning classes, many of the students finished their novels well before the end of the grading period. Because they're writing me book notes, and it is a reading class after all, they were/are still required to read during full-class SSR.

Of the 15 students in my first period class, 8 are reading books I've either started during a read-aloud, or books that they've seen me read over the course of the semester. Two of those eight students asked me specifically for a book they saw me read that they found interesting. One of the kids saw one of my reader response projects and asked me to explain. I told him to read the book to figure out what it meant, and he did.

All of this is to say there is power in reading aloud to middle school students. There is power in doing book talks with reluctant readers. There is power in completing and displaying the projects you ask students to complete. There is power in modeling silent reading and entertaining the questions they ask about your book. They're NOT always stalling. And teachers shouldn't listen to instructional leaders who say that middle school students shouldn't be read to.

Some of the books I've read this semester that students picked up:

• Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar
• Looking for Alaska by John Green
• Unwind by Neal Shusterman
• The Schwa Was Here by Neal Shusterman
• Tears of a Tiger by Sharon Draper
• The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
• ttyl by Lauren Myracle
• Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman
• Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson

Listen (Video) by Laurie Halse Anderson

I found video on Youtube of Laurie Halse Anderson reading her poem, Listen. The purpose of the poem is to show reader's responses Speak. I think the title is appropriate. Check it out.

On Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Before I begin and disappoint my reader, I do want to say I'm limiting my discussion of this novel if only because I'll revisit it once the semester starts. When I do, I'll post discussion/assignments here just as I have before.

Wintergirls (2009) is in the same vein as Speak (1999) and Catalyst (2002), though I don't think it occurs at the same school as these two novels (Melinda, from Speak is mentioned on page 150-something of Catalyst). In this novel, the title character, Lia, is struggling with anorexia and with the death of her bulimic friend, Cassie. Anderson, in an interview on the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)/readwritethink.org podcast Text Messages talks about the novel and about how she tried to discuss the topic in such a way that the novel didn't become a guide to those teens with eating disorders.

I did want to mention that Anderson made an interesting stylistic choice, in using strikethrough text, in this first person narrated story. I read some criticism of using this technique to get into Lia's head by another blogger a few days ago (and it's my luck I can't find that blog again). The gist of what the blogger said was that it takes away from the story. I must disagree. If Lia's emptiness, which she uses as a synonym for strength, comes from her self-denial, then the reader must be allowed to see that inner struggle. Without the strikethrough text, readers don't see Lia's fight with herself, between what she really wants, and what she wants. It a way, it reminds me of William Faulkner's Light in August where characters are thinking "one thing" and ... thinking something else in their subconscious altogether...

Also the blogger argues that Lia's use of figurative language wasn't authentic--especially not for a 17-year-old high school student. I have to refute with: if she's a reader, it's possible that the language used in Lia's head very well be authentic. If my notebooks from that time in my life still existed, the tone and metaphor use would be similar. Because of this, the language makes it easy for me to relate to and identify with Lia.

I think I'm going to leave you with a link to the poem that Anderson read at the end of the podcast. This one, her reading of it, made me tear. Not good when you're driving down I-10, but a moving poem nonetheless.

For more information about Laurie Halse Anderson, click here for her website, or here for her LiveJournal.

Anderson, Laurie Halse.(2009). Wintergirls. New York: Viking.