To Kill a Mockingbird Post #3

This is the edition that I have been reading,
picture thanks to the Goodreads!

So I have a small confession about this read-in....I am behind!!! As I have been moving and still struggling with my health, I haven't read as much as I wanted.  So I will post again in the future with some more stuff from the end...but with today being the last day of the read-in, I wanted to talk a little bit more about stuff that teachers can point out.

Harper Lee has a very unique writing style..and I like to point a couple of quotes that highlight this style. This first quote comes from chapter six when Dill and Jem decide to sneak up to the Radley place and peek in the shutters.  When the story starts....you notice the writing to this has slowed down.  She used specific words and punctuation to slow down the reading.

Dill stopped and let Jem go ahead.  When Jem put his foot on the bottom step, the step squeaked.  He stood still, then tried his weight by degrees. The step was silent.  Jem skipped two steps, put his foot on the porch, heaved himself to it, and teetered a long moment. He regained his balance and dropped to his knees. He crawled to the window, raised his head and looked in (71) .  

 And then as you keep reading....we learn that there is a shadow moving towards them.  You notice here that the reading starts to speed up.

Dill saw [the shadow] next. He put his hands to his face.  When it crossed Jem, Jem saw it. He put his arms over his head and went rigid.  The shadow stopped about a foot beyond Jem. Its arm came out from its side, dropped , and was still. Then it turned and moved back across Jem, walked along the porch and off the side of the house, returning as it had come.  Jem leaped off the porch and galloped toward us. He flung open the gate, danced Dill and me through, and shooed us between two rows of swishing collards (71).

If you pick up on the verbs that they are more urgent.  The words come a lot faster too.  It is a great technique! There are other moments in the book too that really point out her writing style...but this is one of my favorites.

August Read-a-thon!

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 19th and runs through Sunday, August 25th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 8.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

Teaching....Harder Than It Looks

The picture from the article

Today I found an article called, "Why Teaching is Harder Than It Looks" and it was a great day for me to find this article.  I have been really struggling with my burn out at my current job....not just the teaching but everything around it.  This article really spoke to me...that my job is suppose to be hard---that I picked it knowing it was going to be hard.  Though I still maintain that no teacher really knows what they are getting themselves into until they get there. But this article really spoke to the fact that the outside world does not understand what it is like to be a teacher.

The author is a PhD. and she had decided to leave the laboratory work and become a teacher--first of that is awesome!! This is what more experts need to do! It takes such courage to do so and the students benefit from their experience in their field.  But this teacher had a wake up call to the lack of respect that teachers feel.  It is so true. We put our heart and soul into our job, and try to prove to everyone that we can do it.  She mentions that a lot of people try to tell her how to do her job--been there! She mentions how we try to quantify teaching so we know how people are doing....but you can't do that! So as school starts up again for a lot of people...go thank a teacher!  We work hard and could use that thank you.

Trash

There is the saying, another man's trash is another man's treasure.  Not at my house right now....we have thrown so much away--I swear that we have completely filled that dumpster on our own!! We are still moving....yesterday was big day and then we had all of the little crap left! That has been today and last night...writing really fast to get back to it!

Book Review: Safe Haven

Title: Safe Haven
Author: Nicholas Sparks
Genre: Drama/Romance
Rating: 4.5/5....seriously like one of my favoriteist books ever!!

Why Did I Read? I wanted to see the movie so I needed to read book first and I found it on audio!

Summary: A girl named Kate shows up in a small town with no relation to it at all and tries to stay off in the background.  We eventually find out that she is running away from a very abusive husband.  However, she is able to find some semblance of normal as she meets Alex and his two kids--Kristen and Josh.  Of course you can guess that Alex and Kate fall in love...but what about the husband? What is he going to do about all of this?

What Did I Love?  I loved the story...and I loved the premise.  It was not your typical Nicholas Sparks book and that is what I loved. It was beautifully written and I loved listening to it.  The narrator told it beautifully...though I wish I could remember her name! I love how she changed voices for the characters and how it is not abridged!

What Did I Hate? I didn't like the end twist with the best friend...I won't spoil it but seriously it was a little lame.

I want to see the movie..but on the other hand I really don't want the book to be ruined....anybody seen it?

Current Event Friday

So today is a serious packing day so I am writing quickly and late.  I just wanted to point out one article today that I found interesting....the letter from the attorney general to the Russian government saying that Snowden will not receive the death penalty if sent back to the United States.  What is most interesting to me about this too is that the lawyer for Snowden's father points out that the letter assumes guilt before a trial has been held.  As silly as it sounds, he has a point.  As US citizens we are innocent until proven guilty, and we deserve a fair trial whether we have publicly shared military/intelligence secrets or not.  Thank you Bill of Rights.  Check out the AP article here:  http://www.ksl.com/?sid=26163764&nid=127&title=no-death-penalty-for-snowden-if-convicted-us-says&fm=home_page&s_cid=queue-19

TKAM Part 2

From Amazon.com

So today is the check-in for the middle of To Kill a Mockingbird.  Chapter 12-21 is what I will be talking about today.  And as I did in the first part, I will talk a little bit about things that teachers can point out to their English students about this book.

First off, the beginning of this part really starts to set the stage for the trial. We start to figure out Harper Lee's reasoning through Scout's eyes for why people are racist.  In my estimation, it is because we like to stick people in a box. There is a quote in the book that really points this out that students might readily pick up on.

Aunt Alexandra, in underlining the moral of young Sam Meriweather's suicide, said it was caused by a morbid streak in the family.  Let a sixteen-year-old girl giggle in the choir and Aunty would say, "It just goes to show you, all the Penfield women are flighty."  Everybody in Maycomb, it seemed had a Streak: a Drinking Streak, a Gambling Streak, a Mean Streak, a Funny Streak (172).

If everyone has a streak, then everyone has a box, and we can stick them in that to judge them.  To me racism in the book really comes out because we have to stick everyone in a box...even the Cunninghams and the Ewells.  When Calpurnia takes Jem and Scout to church with her, they are stuck in a box because they are white children in a black church.

Not only do we put ourselves in boxes but people get stuck in their ways.  As Scout explains:

The older citizens, the present generation of people who had lived side by side for years and years, were utterly predictable to one another: they took for granted attitudes, character shadings, even gestures, as having been repeated in each generation and refined by time (175).

So it is interesting as Atticus tries to push the envelope of race, he knows he is going to loose because the people are predictable.

Aside from the racism ideas, they are a couple of writing prompts you can use with the class to get them thinking.  For example, at the beginning of chapter 12 Scout describes summer and you can really picture it.  Have the students write their own description of their favorite season--practice sensory imagery.  Or you can have them respond to different things in the story like this quote on page 179. "It takes a woman to do that kind of work." It is interesting for students to try to figure out what she really means by that.  Or having them write about why they think Atticus took the case. There are lots you can do...