Week of 10-21 through 10-25

This week we focused on realistic fiction and gradient text ratings. I find it interesting how these ratings actually work. Some of the books I was really surprised with, especially seeing the books that I've read in the past and how they were rated. I was reading at levels v-z as a 5th grader! That makes me feel very good about my reading level. However, I know that it will very child to child. Every child is unique and different in their reading skills and interests, and that's something that is hard to adapt for everyone. I enjoy most books, but just because I don't like a book for its plot doesn't mean that my student wouldn't. Banned books was another topic that was discussed. I feel there is definitely a difference not only from state to state and school to school on what should be a "banned book," but also it varies on the type of town you live in and its size. I noticed that when we looked at the list of banned books in our groups earlier in the week that most of the towns that were in limbo over the issues were either huge cities or Southern towns. It seems like from the past, a lot of controversy is always feuded in the South. Anyway, I have enjoyed the unit on realistic fiction. I even challenged myself this past weekend and read the sequel to "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George, which was a book I absolutely despised when I had to read it in my accelerated reading group in the 5th grader. In fact, I remember all of my friends and I just read one chapter, put al of our information together at the end and then made our project together. That was the first tie I ever ducked out on a book, and I've had a bad view of that book ever since. However, once I read the sequel, things changed. I realized that 10-year old Olivia didn't like "My Side of the Mountain" because it was filled with nature and hunting terms that I didn't understand then. Now I understand them, making the book a lot more intriguing and deep than I thought it originally was. You find that Sam's parents moved away again and left Alice, and then chaos develops after the DNR takes away Frightful and Alice goes missing around the same period. I'm glad the book persuaded me to change my mind about the entire thing. Hopefully, I can do that in the future for my students!