Books!

Over on Facebook, a friend asked for book recommendations. I put off answering b/c I knew it would take some time as I created my list. I get so excited when I talk about books.

My BFF, Jill Culmo, whose list and Blog I shared with you on January 1st, is much better put together.  Here is a list of books I have enjoyed or read lately.

The Never List by Koethi Zan

One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood

The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Any book by Gillian Flynn

Any book by Liane Moriarty

The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

The Last Mile by David Baldacci

You can also check me out on Goodreads!  I keep track of what I have read and what I plan to read on there.

My problem with creating a list is that as soon as I think I am finished, I think of something else to add.

Reading and Struggling Readers

Our 8th graders had to pass this year's state assessment to move on to 9th grade.  If they fail the first test, they receive two more chances.  Between the first and second tests, we pulled the students from electives to give them extra help.  I had the privilege of working with 12 ladies and gentlemen.

The first day, I had them do a reading interest survey to help me find out a little bit about them.  We actually did very little involving reading skills as I wanted to build relationships with them.  I learned that most don't have books in the home, and most had only read one book in the last year.  The more I read their answers, the sadder I got.

Over the next 11 days, we worked on various things, but the one that that repeated daily was their lack of desire to read and their absolute disdain for reading.  It saddened me.

On our last day together, I finally had a great idea.  I checked out a lot of children's books from our campus library.  We don't have a large assortment, but we had several and some great ones.  I showed the students each book, said the title, and told them a little bit about the book.  I had used to some sentence stems to create questions they could do with any book to practice the skills they needed.  They could work individually or in pairs.  Each student or pair chose a book.  Next thing I knew, they were reading.  Reading silently.  Reading to one another.  Listening to someone read to them. Working. Practicing.  THEY WERE READING!!  I nearly cried.  Why didn't I think of this sooner?  I will next year.

Thanksgiving Reading

Since we were going to be gone and had a 5 hour drive to and fro, I grabbed 3 books to dive into during our trip.  Well, I managed to only read one of the books while we were gone, which was read only while we were driving.  I just read/finished Counting by 7's by Holly Goldberg Sloan.  I really enjoyed the book. It had a good pace, and I didn't get bored. On page 360, I ran across a line that touched me.

"I'm not brave; it's just that all other choices have been thrown out the window."

I thought, "If 'brave' were changed to 'strong,' that would be me."  I don't mean for that to sound conceited or anything, but I find that with everything that I have thought about, felt, and gone through the last few years, that I haven't been brave.  I have had to be strong.  Stronger than I ever thought I needed to be.  Strong enough to get through.  Maybe I have put things off, not mourned when or how I should have, over or under reacted, but I have survived.  Strong and the way I have handled things is the only way I knew how b/c "all other choices" were "thrown out the window."

Lunch Book Club

The office staff, administrators, and support staff (all of us who are not classroom teachers but support the teachers in various ways) eat lunch the lunch period after all the students and teachers eat.  We talk about a variety of things--family, work, movies, and more.  We also talk a lot about books.  We are always sharing titles that we enjoy, but we don't tend to remember them after we eat.  We decided this year that we would read a book together and discuss it during lunch.  We began on October 15th with the plan that we would read one chapter a night and discuss that chapter the following day during lunch.  Well, once we were supposed to have read 5 chapters, many were behind.  We decided to change our "rules."  We would read the whole book by November 20th and then bring a dish on November 21st to share that symbolized the book to us.  November 21st was the day we were getting out before Thanksgiving Break, so very few wound up being on campus and several ended up in meetings. We decided we would just have to put it off.  Maybe after the break.

Oh!  What book did we read, you ask?  We read The Wife, The Maid, and The Mistress by Ariel Lawhon.  I enjoyed it, but I have no idea what dish I would make.

Now, we have to decide what our next book will be.

I took a lot of books I really enjoyed (and have blogged about earlier this year) and created a little library in my office for them to borrow.

Reading Nightly

I have been trying to practice what I preach and have added reading to my nightly (or almost nightly) routine.  In the last 3 weeks, I have read:

Landline by Rainbow Rowell
Beautiful Oblivion (#3 in the Maddox Brothers series) by Jamie McGuire
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
The Right Woman by Linda Warren
Where She Went (sequel to If I Stay) by Gayle Forman

All are so different and impacted me in different ways and on different levels.

Honestly, I didn't like Landline very much.  I had LOVED Eleanor and Park, so I was excited to read something else by Rainbow Rowell, but I did not like this book.

I enjoyed Beautiful Oblivion.  It had been such a long time since I had read Beautiful Disaster that it took me halfway through the book to see how the two overlapped.  I was kicking myself, but I got it, and despite that, I really enjoyed it.

It took me several chapters to get into The Light Between Oceans.  I read a couple of chapters one night, then a few more the next, and even a few more the next.  I was probably about halfway through when I got into it and could not put it down.  It is a good "What would you do?" book.

I had The Right Woman tucked away on a shelf from when my aunt gave me several books years ago.  Since I was in between books, I grabbed it.  It wasn't as hard core as some Harlequin books out there, thank goodness.  A good mystery that kept me in the story.  Of course, I love a love story too.

I read If I Stay over the summer, and I didn't realize there was a sequel, Where She Went, until I finished it and saw a chapter for it included at the end.  I enjoyed If I Stay.  Good book.  I really liked Where She Went.  Many stories I have read deal with loss, meaning death.  This one did that to help Mia cope and to show us how she coped.  But . . . it also dealt with loss, meaning someone leaving and you having no choice in the matter.  That is what I have been dealing with, and it was great seeing someone else (even though he is a fictitious character) deal with this loss and to know everyone does it differently, and it is OK.  It is OK to handle it the way you do and that you do grieve.  Loss of any kind really calls for and should allow grieving even if those around you do not understand the pain and loss. I enjoyed this book.

I have several professional books I need to read or reread, but I just can't get into them like all these fiction books.  Well, I guess I better!

Happy reading!

Summer Acceleration 2014

In my 17th years as a public school educator, I have never taught or worked Summer School.  This year, I was asked to teach Science for Credit Recovery, the class students attend to do/finish work and then get credit for the class from this last school year.  I agreed b/c I taught Credit Recovery both sessions throughout the school year this year for 7th & 8th grade Science AND Social Studies (all at the same time in the same room).  As the Administrators planned, they realized I was needed to teach Reading in Summer Acceleration instead.  This is the course 8th graders need to take as a last ditch review before taking the 3rd administration of our state assessment, which they must pass to go to 9th grade.

At first, I started pulling together my own ideas and lessons, but I soon learned that the District Coordinator would give us a curriculum and individual student workbooks.  While I was excited to be given something so I didn't have to plan it myself and excited to be given texts I didn't have to go find, I was sad that it wasn't more engaging and included workbooks.

I taught two groups.  Group 1 was from 8:00-10:00, and Group 2 was from 10:00-12:00.  We met on June 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, & 23 for lessons/activities.  They took their test on the 25th.

I learned a lot during this time with my 2 groups.  While trying to keep them engaged and on task, we discussed the World Cup, movies, God, religion, Islam vs Judaism vs Christianity, the Big Bang Theory (not the show), Hurricane Katrina (its impact on a student and his relocation to Texas), what they read, why they don't read, why they hate reading, text to text, self, & word connections to all we read, books, and much more.  I tried to do Book Talks or Book Reviews to get them reading more.  I so enjoyed Group 1, their focus, topics of discussion, and personalities.  Group 2 was more worried about talking about any and everything and not doing any work, so they were a little more difficult with which to work.

When we met, we created Super Hero or Alter Ego names, so the students drew their pictures and we kept them on display in the classroom.

My Alter Ego name was Professor Sleuth.  I thought it was quite fitting.

Week 1: Focused on the Prove It Strategy/Annotating, Fiction, and Plot Structure

Week 2: Focused on Expository Text and Inferencing

Week 3: Focused on Text Connections and Testing

I can remember 3 horrifically awful testing experiences, and two of those occurred this last school year. After the 8 days we have had together (Group 2 and I), I was dreading testing yesterday.  I was so pleasantly surprised.  Yesterday was one of my best testing experiences ever.  They were so well behaved, and the majority worked hard and used their time wisely.  I don't know that they will all pass, but most have a better chance b/c they were so well behaved yesterday.  We should find out scores in 2 to 2.5 weeks.

Teaching Reading for a Change

Today, our district held Professional Development for all 7th-high school English and Reading teachers. On our campus alone, we had 18 or 19 teachers out for this training.  Some of the ELA and Rdg teachers as well as a few others went to Love and Logic training.  In total, we had 21 teachers out.  8 positions were not picked up by subs, so any and everyone covered classes today.  I had the opportunity to teach 7th grade Reading for 2 periods, and I really enjoyed it.

Everyone has their niche, and I prefer the 7th graders to the 8th graders. I will work with both, but when I have a choice, I choose 7th grade.  I guess it is because they are so much like my 6th graders I taught for years and loved.  8th graders have a few more hormones and a lot more attitude.

The hard thing about covering a class is, like subs, you don't know what you are doing until you walk in the room.  Once I'm in there, I want to make the lesson my own.  Today, I had to tweak a few things b/c there wasn't enough time to finish what was assigned.  I also don't like students to work independently, silently for a whole class.  I broke up the lesson with discussions, which the students enjoyed.

I would go teach Reading again.  I really enjoyed it today.

Beautiful Disaster

In the wee hours this morning, I finished Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire.  Once I started it when I crawled into bed last night, I knew I was not going to put it down until I finished it. Good book!

Check out this synopsis on Goodreads.

This is the book description from Amazon.com.

Book Description

Release date: August 14, 2012

 

The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.

Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby wants—and needs—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.

The Lost Years

Last night, I finished The Lost Years by Mary Higgins Clark.  My office-mates/friends had given me this mystery months ago for my birthday, but I had not made the time to read it until now.  One friend told me that she kept paper and pencil nearby to help her keep track of all the characters as she read b/c there are always so many in her books.  Well, I didn't need paper and pencil, but she was right.  There were many characters to keep straight (there were at least 14).  It was a good book that had you questioning motives, if the detectives were right, if you had missed a detail somewhere, and led you straight up to the climactic ending.  I figured out "who done it" before it was revealed, but that was fine.  I had to be sure I was right! 

I liked that it had a Christian/Religious twist to it and included information surrounding the lost parchment from Christ to Joseph of Arimathea.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

While in a road trip last Friday, I read The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. The church Ladies' Group is reading it to discuss next month, so I thought 5 hrs in the car was the perfect time to tackle it.

The book is set in England, and I loved learning new words and phrases associated with the British English. A map was provided at the beginning of the book to help you trace his steps from the southern tip of Great Britain to the northern area. I really liked this. I love England, and I could relate to parts of his trip since I had traveled to the London area a few times.

As I write this, I do not have the book in front of me to check my details, but I'm not off much, and any mistakes won't change what I mean.

Harold, a retired gentleman in his 60s, set out to mail a letter, but he decided, on a whim, to just keep walking by the mailboxes and post offices to deliver the letter in person. As the story unfolds, you learn why seeing this person in person is so important and why the walking is the best form of transportation.

On his journey, he met various people who helped him in different ways, taught him life lessons, helped him to see life differently, and supported him as he focused and was determined to get to his final destination.

He had plenty of time to think about life, his job, his wife, his son, his friends and neighbors, regrets, accomplishments, and so much more. He remembered happy memories as well as sad, including terrible memories he really didn't want to recall. He processed everything from his childhood to adolescence to marriage to parenthood to retirement. He had a lot of time to think. He processed everything he had not processed before, saw things in a new light, and came out in the end "a new man" ready to face the rest of his life.  In the end, I believe he had over 80+ days to think, remember, and process.

Have you taken the time to think, remember, and process your life? Have you had a major change in your life that forced you to think and process, even if you didn't want to do it? How did you feel?

With the big life changes I have had these last two years, I have had time to reflect.  More so in the last 13 months. While Harold thought through his memories and processed things that had happened, there were times he would have a memory and push it away, but it would come back, and he eventually did process it. It I have a memory or thought I don't want to process, I just keep pushing it away. It hurts to process those thoughts. My biggest issue is that I can process and deal with my role or thoughts. I have terrible trouble or more pain when dealing with others, their actions, their thoughts, why they are the way they are, why they do/did what they do/did. Memories or problems that have me asking, "Why?" are the most difficult. In the end, the final decisions have little to do with me, but they hurt nonetheless, and I can't do anything about it.

Great Blog

My dear, best friend, Jill, has started a blog to focus on education, books, and more.  I encourage you to follow her at ...and Jill Came Tumbling After.

She has also shared the 2013 Reading Challenge from Goodreads.com.  I encourage you to take part.  I haven't set a goal of how many I want to read this year, but I have finished my first, Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn.  I enjoyed this book, but I really liked Flynn's Gone Girl better.

Happy reading!