Chapter 7: Realistic Fiction

Realistic fiction books are wrote with settings, characters, and events.  These books can be depicted by ones events in life but are made up.  Realistic fiction holds the attention of many children making it easier to expand their knowledge.  Teachers can use this genre in read alouds, journals, and open ended discussions.  Using realistic fiction in your classroom has many benefits.  It allows students to see the world from others perspectives, children get to use writing to show human problems and relationships with honesty in a depth they never have before. 

I cannot wait to use realistic fiction in my classroom.  I have so many great ideas of how I would incorporate creating new knowledge with fun activities.  In the beginning of the year I will allow each of my students to write down a few books that they enjoy reading.  I will make sure my library holds a majority of those books.  During the year we will have read alouds of these different books.  Once we get into the lesson more I will have the students work in groups to create and illustrate a realistic fiction story.  Children love to work in groups and creating for a final product is always fun.  We will share our stories with others. 

I did something similar to this with 6 ESE kindergarten students and they loved it.  They decided what they wanted to be when they grew up.  We made play-do people, illustrated, wrote about what they would do when they got older, and took realistic pictures.  At the end of the lesson we put together their books and they shared them with each other and then brought them home to their parents.  In my classroom, I would want to keep these books in my library to show classes to come. 

Chapter 11: Diverse perspectives of Children Literature

Today's classrooms are filled with a diverse population so we will need to learn to teach to many different cultures.  This will include teaching many different types of literature to include all the different cultures in the class.  One of the first assignments I will do in my own classroom is a project on diversity.  I will ask my students to share a bit about their culture and then we will learn about the different cultures in the classroom.  To end this lesson we would have a feast with different dishes that I will ask the parents to bring and join us.  I believe that each year we will be a family for the year and they should get to know who one another really are. 

This activity will allow my students to use technology and a wide variety of diverse books.  Literacy development will be gained, social skills will gained, and hopefully many friendships will be made.

Chapter 12: The New Literacies: The World of Online Children's Literature

Schools today have a vast majority of technology.  When I went to school there was an overhead projector and a T.V. the teacher would roll in on the cart if a video had to be shown.  Today students have Elmo's, Promethean Boards, and computers in every classroom.  They have mobile laptops and Ipads they get to bring home to do work on.  As we continue through the twenty-first century technology will only get more advanced.  

Being a new teacher with all this technology is exciting and scary at the same time.  I am excited to be able to incorporate many new things in my curriculum but scared that I will not learn them as quick as I may need to.  While exploring this chapter I have learned about many sites that I did not know anything about. 

This chapter has also given me many ideas of things I could do in my classroom.  One part of this chapter especially stood out for me.  I really enjoyed the part about options for children with special needs.  I want to become an ESE teacher and this part gave me resources that I will definitely use in my room.  I will also use some of the other sites like creating a web quest for my students to follow and read aloud sites that will help my students with their different needs.