I love this book! It not only offers suggestions for engaging students who lack interest or motivation, it clarifies information about the common core that just about everything else I've read has ignored. Two of the sentences from the standards that the book's authors identify as important are "The standards leave room for teachers, curriculum developers, and states to determine how these goals should be reached and what additional topics should be addressed," and "Teachers are thus free to provide students with whatever tools and knowledge their professional judgment and experience identify as most helpful in meeting the goals set out in the Standards." These sentences remove the pressure to teach books recommended in the appendix of the Common Core for a specific grade level. If data shows that students in a class are reading well below grade level, I have the freedom to select books that stretch their abilities, rather than being compelled to use books that I know are far beyond their abilities.
This book also recommends choice for students, not just for teachers. I have found in the past that my struggling students will read if I provide them with a choice of materials and assignments. This year I am mandated to teach 5 texts to my sophomore students, which removes almost all choice for me and for my students. To me, this is the ideal way to make students hate reading. We collect data to evaluate the reading level and interests of students, then force-feed them books for which they have no interest and few of the prerequisite skills. When students do not know the meanings of simple words like factual, affectionate, hasten, disruptive, or query, expecting them to read Julius Caesar is an effort in futility. When reading a four page, high interest story in the text book is a accomplishment for them because it was so very long, five acts of Shakespeare must hold the same degree of intimidation to them that War and Peace would have for me. While this book agrees that our goals must be to move students as close to the standards for their grade as possible, it provides strategies for moving them closer, not insisting that they magically perform at that level just because they are now in grade x.
I'm sure I'll have more updates on this book over the next few days. It's just too good to put down, even with a sinus infection. Now there's motivation.....
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Saturday, December 28, 2013
How Children Succeed...
I finished reading How Children Succeed with a mixture of affirmation and disappointment. The affirmation stems from my long-held beliefs that so much of what we deal with stems from the child's home and early childhood and that children need boundaries, structure, and rules. Paul Tough also writes about the positive impact of failure, when failure is something that people learn from. Too often, children are not challenged to the point of failing -- while I don't believe that the bar should be raised so high that success is impossible (or seems impossible), sometimes a student may need to fail in order to discover what works for him or her in order to achieve success.
The disappointment stems from the lack of concrete suggestions for success at the high school level. Even more so, statistics show that making a difference for the children living at the deepest levels of poverty is so much harder than it is for those living at the higher end of the poverty scale. One of the major impacts on the likelihood of success is the presence of stress in a child's life. In addition, a close, nurturing relationship with a parent-figure can offset some of the impact of this stress. Stresses like loosing a home, witnessing violence, experiencing violence have a incredible negative impact that lasts into adulthood; experiencing these stresses with the absence of a nurturing presence magnifies the impact. Measures of stress experienced in childhood outweigh the things we normally look at like the results of IQ tests.
This book gave me new insights, but didn't necessarily give me any new tools for the classroom as a whole. However, it did show me that making a sincere connection to individual students is invaluable. I will never be happy with my inability to impact every student who crosses my path, but I am encouraged to keep making as much of a difference as I can.
The disappointment stems from the lack of concrete suggestions for success at the high school level. Even more so, statistics show that making a difference for the children living at the deepest levels of poverty is so much harder than it is for those living at the higher end of the poverty scale. One of the major impacts on the likelihood of success is the presence of stress in a child's life. In addition, a close, nurturing relationship with a parent-figure can offset some of the impact of this stress. Stresses like loosing a home, witnessing violence, experiencing violence have a incredible negative impact that lasts into adulthood; experiencing these stresses with the absence of a nurturing presence magnifies the impact. Measures of stress experienced in childhood outweigh the things we normally look at like the results of IQ tests.
This book gave me new insights, but didn't necessarily give me any new tools for the classroom as a whole. However, it did show me that making a sincere connection to individual students is invaluable. I will never be happy with my inability to impact every student who crosses my path, but I am encouraged to keep making as much of a difference as I can.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
English Journal and How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character
For the first two days of winter break, I couldn't focus for long enough to even read an article in Reader's Digest. Now, after almost a week, I am catching up on the last three issues of English Journal and am a third of the way through How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough. At the start of a break, I would usually be reading fiction, but for some reason am thoroughly engrossed in these non-fiction texts.
How Children Succeed has been both interesting and discouraging up to this point. I do like that it goes beyond the poverty issue and looks at causes for low academic success across socio-economic lines. Those of us who teach have seen successful young people who grew up in poverty and unmotivated students who appear to have everything they need in life. I think this book explains some of the causes for that. What I am waiting for is solutions. This is where I would prefer a printed book rather than my Kindle -- I'd be flipping through pages right now trying to find the "good news" to keep me motivated to keep reading the very important and informative research. I need a glimmer of hope as, once again, so much leads back to those critical first years of life. How do we overcome that (or help our students overcome that) at the high school level?
Much of what I read so far in English Journal addresses the pros and cons of Common Core. When my husband and I compare the stories we read when we were in our early teens to the books that some of our students read, we have to wonder just when students started reading less challenging texts. Of course, we both love to read, so maybe we are comparing apples to oranges when looking back to our high school days. I firmly agree that we need to ask our students to read more complex texts, but that goes hand in hand with our students coming to us reading at grade level. Many of my students are unable to follow a story line that includes flashbacks or multiple narrators, even in a movie. On a recent test, students (sophomores) asked me to define "factual" and "affectionate." As I read through articles and books, I keep trying to reconcile the advice of a good friend to "meet the students where they are" and the mandate to teach complex texts "appropriate" to each grade level. I will keep reading and gleaning ideas for scaffolding and engaging students. I have been surprised at the effectiveness of some new methods I've used this year. Some were far outside my comfort zone, but students both learned from those "wacky" ideas and reported that they found the method(s) helpful -- even when they found them as odd as I did!
At some point, I will have to stop reading material of my choice and read the plays that I will teach my IB seniors this semester. I've read one in the past two months, one back in the 1970s, and the other two not at all. I'll be happy when next year rolls around and I have materials and experience with all of the curriculum for the classes I'm teaching. I will be prepared for my classes this year before I teach, but it will be another six months of working almost every weekend. But, for at least the next couple of days, I will read whatever my whim leads me to and not feel guilty for taking a break from lesson planning!
How Children Succeed has been both interesting and discouraging up to this point. I do like that it goes beyond the poverty issue and looks at causes for low academic success across socio-economic lines. Those of us who teach have seen successful young people who grew up in poverty and unmotivated students who appear to have everything they need in life. I think this book explains some of the causes for that. What I am waiting for is solutions. This is where I would prefer a printed book rather than my Kindle -- I'd be flipping through pages right now trying to find the "good news" to keep me motivated to keep reading the very important and informative research. I need a glimmer of hope as, once again, so much leads back to those critical first years of life. How do we overcome that (or help our students overcome that) at the high school level?
Much of what I read so far in English Journal addresses the pros and cons of Common Core. When my husband and I compare the stories we read when we were in our early teens to the books that some of our students read, we have to wonder just when students started reading less challenging texts. Of course, we both love to read, so maybe we are comparing apples to oranges when looking back to our high school days. I firmly agree that we need to ask our students to read more complex texts, but that goes hand in hand with our students coming to us reading at grade level. Many of my students are unable to follow a story line that includes flashbacks or multiple narrators, even in a movie. On a recent test, students (sophomores) asked me to define "factual" and "affectionate." As I read through articles and books, I keep trying to reconcile the advice of a good friend to "meet the students where they are" and the mandate to teach complex texts "appropriate" to each grade level. I will keep reading and gleaning ideas for scaffolding and engaging students. I have been surprised at the effectiveness of some new methods I've used this year. Some were far outside my comfort zone, but students both learned from those "wacky" ideas and reported that they found the method(s) helpful -- even when they found them as odd as I did!
At some point, I will have to stop reading material of my choice and read the plays that I will teach my IB seniors this semester. I've read one in the past two months, one back in the 1970s, and the other two not at all. I'll be happy when next year rolls around and I have materials and experience with all of the curriculum for the classes I'm teaching. I will be prepared for my classes this year before I teach, but it will be another six months of working almost every weekend. But, for at least the next couple of days, I will read whatever my whim leads me to and not feel guilty for taking a break from lesson planning!
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
The Butler Has Feelings
Lo and behold, the butler has feelings! Not only does Lord Darlington notice tears on his face during his father's final evening, he reads romance novels. Of course, he has reasons for allowing himself to feel emotion -- something that simply does not fit into his concept of a butler.
The tears that Lord Darlington sees are the only evidence of his grief as his father is clearly dying. The last conversation he has with him is as formal and stilted as any other up to this part in the book. Is he remembering the conversations accurately, or is he portraying himself the way he wishes his audience to see him? His actions that evening show that his job took precedence over his grief, but I can understand that in a way. When my father died, I only took one day off from classes simply because being at the university distracted me; I could not stay home and allow the grief to swallow me. I had to deal with those feelings eventually, but it was easier to only allow them space in small increments of time. However, Mr. Stevens, the butler, does not seem to go back and deal with any of his dismissed and denied emotions, unless it is throughout the course of this narration.
Just as he put his grief aside, he pushes anything he feels for Miss Kenton so deep that he can deny that he feels anything at all beyond a professional respect. Even that respect is limited as she never quite measures up to his view of a perfect housekeeper. May only Data from Startrek could be a perfect servant, completing tasks efficiently and thoroughly without letting those pesky feelings get in the way.
One also has to question Mr. Stevens' loyalty to Lord Darlington. He constantly defends him, but lies about having worked for him. He provides reasons for Darlington's pre-war allegiances, but not all of them ring quite true. I find myself wanting to know more about what happened after the war and whether all the other nobles who criticized him were really inviting the same people to be guests at their table.
The romance novels that Mr. Stevens read are the oddest twist so far. He claims to read them in order to improve his English. I read cheap romance novels as a way to improve my German, but German was my second language; at that time even the newspaper was still challenging to read for me, but the novels were written at a far lower level. Mr. Stevens clearly already had the language skills so one must believe that he was a romantic at heart.
I read a poem by Robert Graves earlier this year about repressing his sexuality. This theme is also apparent in his autobiography. Here it is again in this novel. I know this is a stereotypical view of the English, but I don't know that the English are any different from the Germans and Americans that I know. All traits appear to some degree or another in every culture that I've encountered. It will be interesting to see how this novel continues and whether Mr. Stevens finds true love at the end of his journey.
The tears that Lord Darlington sees are the only evidence of his grief as his father is clearly dying. The last conversation he has with him is as formal and stilted as any other up to this part in the book. Is he remembering the conversations accurately, or is he portraying himself the way he wishes his audience to see him? His actions that evening show that his job took precedence over his grief, but I can understand that in a way. When my father died, I only took one day off from classes simply because being at the university distracted me; I could not stay home and allow the grief to swallow me. I had to deal with those feelings eventually, but it was easier to only allow them space in small increments of time. However, Mr. Stevens, the butler, does not seem to go back and deal with any of his dismissed and denied emotions, unless it is throughout the course of this narration.
Just as he put his grief aside, he pushes anything he feels for Miss Kenton so deep that he can deny that he feels anything at all beyond a professional respect. Even that respect is limited as she never quite measures up to his view of a perfect housekeeper. May only Data from Startrek could be a perfect servant, completing tasks efficiently and thoroughly without letting those pesky feelings get in the way.
One also has to question Mr. Stevens' loyalty to Lord Darlington. He constantly defends him, but lies about having worked for him. He provides reasons for Darlington's pre-war allegiances, but not all of them ring quite true. I find myself wanting to know more about what happened after the war and whether all the other nobles who criticized him were really inviting the same people to be guests at their table.
The romance novels that Mr. Stevens read are the oddest twist so far. He claims to read them in order to improve his English. I read cheap romance novels as a way to improve my German, but German was my second language; at that time even the newspaper was still challenging to read for me, but the novels were written at a far lower level. Mr. Stevens clearly already had the language skills so one must believe that he was a romantic at heart.
I read a poem by Robert Graves earlier this year about repressing his sexuality. This theme is also apparent in his autobiography. Here it is again in this novel. I know this is a stereotypical view of the English, but I don't know that the English are any different from the Germans and Americans that I know. All traits appear to some degree or another in every culture that I've encountered. It will be interesting to see how this novel continues and whether Mr. Stevens finds true love at the end of his journey.
Monday, July 15, 2013
The Remains of the Day
The Remains of the Day is an interesting juxtaposition to Goodbye to All That in that it provides a butler's viewpoint to Edwardian upper class society. It is interesting that the narrator's view of the English countryside, English people, and a good butler have a common thread of dignity and understatement. Of course, not everyone fits into his tidy little box of hard-to-define rules. One gets the impression that even as his father began to become less proficient as a butler-now-houseman, the narrator is more offended by this failure than understanding of the diminishing physical ability that comes to everyone who ages. It is difficult to glean whether the father feels the same way or whether his reticence comes from shame. Their conversation is surreal with the narrator referring to his father in the third person. It seems that this inability to communicate with each other started before the narrator hired his father, the man who originally trained him, as a an under-servant. As often happens in families, the roles of father and son are reversed, but this time in a professional environment with little -- or maybe no -- hint of a family relationship. The narrator clearly admires his father, even puts him on a pedestal, which makes it hard to understand why he would assign him living quarters more suitable to a young housemaid than to a respected and retired butler.
The narrator also continues to refer to the former housekeeper by her maiden name instead of her married name. Does this indicate a desire to deny that she was married (and therefore emotionally involved) with another man? I still remember the maiden names of my best friends from high school, but over the years their married names have become a part of them. It feel that it would be disrespectful to refer to them by their maiden names, especially those of them who have had long and successful marriages. That brings me back to the book. The narrator states that Miss Benton has moved out of her marital home and appears to find some pleasure in that idea. He couches it in terms of not letting a private life interfere with one's professional life, but I think there is more to it than that. Underneath all the stuffy rules and disparagement of those who do not meet them there may be some real emotion. I hope I'll find out before the end of the book!
The narrator also continues to refer to the former housekeeper by her maiden name instead of her married name. Does this indicate a desire to deny that she was married (and therefore emotionally involved) with another man? I still remember the maiden names of my best friends from high school, but over the years their married names have become a part of them. It feel that it would be disrespectful to refer to them by their maiden names, especially those of them who have had long and successful marriages. That brings me back to the book. The narrator states that Miss Benton has moved out of her marital home and appears to find some pleasure in that idea. He couches it in terms of not letting a private life interfere with one's professional life, but I think there is more to it than that. Underneath all the stuffy rules and disparagement of those who do not meet them there may be some real emotion. I hope I'll find out before the end of the book!
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
What I'm Not Reading
As we've moved paint cans and yard sale items into more organized piles, I've been able to get to my books that I planned to finish reading this summer. They are all great books, and I've been waiting so long to finish them, but I am only a little more than a week away from starting my graduate class and have not made much progress on the two novels I need to read before that starts.
I once told a friend of mine that one of the reasons that I wanted to teach was so that I would have more time and inspiration to continue my creative writing. It is times like this when I don't even get to read what I want that I truly understand why she softly laughed that day. She also teaches, so she knows how much our job can dictate what we read and write.
The first book I'm not reading, even though I am three quarters of the way through is Said and Done by Roger McGough. McGough has been one of my favorite poets since I discovered modern poetry in high school. The same irreverent humor so often prominent in his poems is also in this autobiography. It's a book that makes me laugh and my favorite pick for those insomniatic nights when I'm reading at 3:00 a.m.
The next book is also an autobiography by a poet: Good-Bye to All That by Robert Graves. Many people assume that I know about the lifestyles of the English upper class, but this book describes a life as foreign to me as to my American students. What I know about the customs of nobility I have gleaned from shows like Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey and from books. It is interesting to read about vacation trips to German castles and friendships with people whose names I vaguely remember from my high school history classes, but it in no way reflects the life of the working class population in England. I have reached the part of the autobiography describing Graves' early years in the military. I don't know if this book is going to give me any new insights into his war poems. I can't help but feel that I should be reading a biography about Wilfred Owen instead of this book as Owen is my favorite World War One poet, but I just resisted the urge to order a copy after looking at the other books sitting on the side table waiting for me!
The third book is a autobiography that I started last summer before last year's lesson planning supplanted reading for fun. I enjoyed Angela's Ashes so much that I knew I would like Frank McCourt's Teacher Man. I do so enjoy his style of writing, and I also enjoy books written by successful teachers. I never made it beyond his first year of teaching -- that book may need to go to the top of the stack.
The last book is Stephen King's On Writing. I've read excerpts from this book and found them enjoyable and useful, both for me and for my students. I quote the little I've read when I teach with such frequency that I know I need to read the whole book. I bought it when I bought Teacher Man, but have yet to crack the cover.
Still, I am enjoying Anil's Ghost and The Remains of the Day. Which one I read depends on whether I pick up a printed book or am waiting somewhere with my Kindle. Even though I like these two books, I have to quiet the little voice that says that it's summer break and I should be able to read whatever I want instead of reading for work. I also have to remind that voice that I will be teaching some books that I really like next year and both two of those books are ones that I've read during a summer break!
I once told a friend of mine that one of the reasons that I wanted to teach was so that I would have more time and inspiration to continue my creative writing. It is times like this when I don't even get to read what I want that I truly understand why she softly laughed that day. She also teaches, so she knows how much our job can dictate what we read and write.
The first book I'm not reading, even though I am three quarters of the way through is Said and Done by Roger McGough. McGough has been one of my favorite poets since I discovered modern poetry in high school. The same irreverent humor so often prominent in his poems is also in this autobiography. It's a book that makes me laugh and my favorite pick for those insomniatic nights when I'm reading at 3:00 a.m.
The next book is also an autobiography by a poet: Good-Bye to All That by Robert Graves. Many people assume that I know about the lifestyles of the English upper class, but this book describes a life as foreign to me as to my American students. What I know about the customs of nobility I have gleaned from shows like Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey and from books. It is interesting to read about vacation trips to German castles and friendships with people whose names I vaguely remember from my high school history classes, but it in no way reflects the life of the working class population in England. I have reached the part of the autobiography describing Graves' early years in the military. I don't know if this book is going to give me any new insights into his war poems. I can't help but feel that I should be reading a biography about Wilfred Owen instead of this book as Owen is my favorite World War One poet, but I just resisted the urge to order a copy after looking at the other books sitting on the side table waiting for me!
The third book is a autobiography that I started last summer before last year's lesson planning supplanted reading for fun. I enjoyed Angela's Ashes so much that I knew I would like Frank McCourt's Teacher Man. I do so enjoy his style of writing, and I also enjoy books written by successful teachers. I never made it beyond his first year of teaching -- that book may need to go to the top of the stack.
The last book is Stephen King's On Writing. I've read excerpts from this book and found them enjoyable and useful, both for me and for my students. I quote the little I've read when I teach with such frequency that I know I need to read the whole book. I bought it when I bought Teacher Man, but have yet to crack the cover.
Still, I am enjoying Anil's Ghost and The Remains of the Day. Which one I read depends on whether I pick up a printed book or am waiting somewhere with my Kindle. Even though I like these two books, I have to quiet the little voice that says that it's summer break and I should be able to read whatever I want instead of reading for work. I also have to remind that voice that I will be teaching some books that I really like next year and both two of those books are ones that I've read during a summer break!
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Anil's Ghost - Questions I Have.
I'm 76 pages into Anil's Ghost, and the question that I keep coming back to is "Who is Anil's Ghost?" Anil is the protagonist of the book, so if the ghost is the ghost of Anil, she is destined to die at some point during the novel. That seems unlikely, at least at this point. So, is Anil's ghost something that led her to Sri Lanka or something that she finds in Sri Lanka?
So far there are many possible ghosts. As a forensic archaeologist, she's dealing with dead bodies, so is she to become so embroiled in the search for what happened to the skeleton mentioned most often that he becomes her ghost? Why did her colleague take photographs of this one skeleton in particular and place them in a envelope that he then addressed? To whom is he sending them? If her colleague is not trustworthy, maybe the ghost of Anil will take a lead role later in the story, but I still doubt that. What about her parents? Is there some unfinished business with them or with her brother that will come to haunt her? Why did Anil relinquish the name given to her at birth in exchange for her current name?
One question leads to another in this book, but there is also a plot with events that keep me wanting to read more. I don't know what I'm enjoying most -- the questions prompted by the title and plot or the story itself? I left England at close to the same age as Anil was when she left Sri Lanka. I can relate to the feelings of belonging and not belonging to the country of one's childhood. That Michael Ondaatje understands this dichotomy after leaving Sri Lanka to live in Canada is clear in the thoughts and actions of Anil. How will this come into play in the rest of the novel?
So far there are many possible ghosts. As a forensic archaeologist, she's dealing with dead bodies, so is she to become so embroiled in the search for what happened to the skeleton mentioned most often that he becomes her ghost? Why did her colleague take photographs of this one skeleton in particular and place them in a envelope that he then addressed? To whom is he sending them? If her colleague is not trustworthy, maybe the ghost of Anil will take a lead role later in the story, but I still doubt that. What about her parents? Is there some unfinished business with them or with her brother that will come to haunt her? Why did Anil relinquish the name given to her at birth in exchange for her current name?
One question leads to another in this book, but there is also a plot with events that keep me wanting to read more. I don't know what I'm enjoying most -- the questions prompted by the title and plot or the story itself? I left England at close to the same age as Anil was when she left Sri Lanka. I can relate to the feelings of belonging and not belonging to the country of one's childhood. That Michael Ondaatje understands this dichotomy after leaving Sri Lanka to live in Canada is clear in the thoughts and actions of Anil. How will this come into play in the rest of the novel?
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Word choice
I was thinking about why I like Anne McCaffrey's writing so much while I was reading The Masterharper of Pern this afternoon. In this book, McCaffrey uses more sentence fragments, mainly to show the thought patterns of her characters. (I do prefer her books that minimize the fragments.) However, it's her word choice and realistic dialog that I really enjoy. As I read, I keep coming across wonderful words like crepuscular (pertaining to twilight) used in a way that is natural and effective. So many of the words that most commonly appear on the GRE exam are in her books, but the books are still easy to read. This reinforces what I keep telling my students -- SAT and GRE words are used in every day writing!
The two authors who I think write the most beautiful sentences are Pat Conroy and Hampton Sides. In Ghost Soldiers, Sides describes the landscape as Army Rangers crawl across the fields toward the prisoner of war camp in Cabanatuan. The book is a war story, but the language in that section made me just sit and admire the beauty of his writing. Much as Shakespeare's tragedies benefit from the comic relief scenes, the sentence structure and word choice that Sides employs eases the harsh reality of what happened while concurrently making it more vivid. I don't think I could have finished the book were it written in harsher sentences. Conroy can likewise ease me through reading an emotionally challenging chapter with his incredible sentences.
Then there are my students -- sometimes they write the most beautiful sentences of all! Some of them write essays that are so good I forget to grade them while I'm reading. Sometimes, there is just one gem of a sentence in a sea of less polished writing. Regardless, it's the sentences that make me just sit and savor them that make a stack of essays enjoyable.
The two authors who I think write the most beautiful sentences are Pat Conroy and Hampton Sides. In Ghost Soldiers, Sides describes the landscape as Army Rangers crawl across the fields toward the prisoner of war camp in Cabanatuan. The book is a war story, but the language in that section made me just sit and admire the beauty of his writing. Much as Shakespeare's tragedies benefit from the comic relief scenes, the sentence structure and word choice that Sides employs eases the harsh reality of what happened while concurrently making it more vivid. I don't think I could have finished the book were it written in harsher sentences. Conroy can likewise ease me through reading an emotionally challenging chapter with his incredible sentences.
Then there are my students -- sometimes they write the most beautiful sentences of all! Some of them write essays that are so good I forget to grade them while I'm reading. Sometimes, there is just one gem of a sentence in a sea of less polished writing. Regardless, it's the sentences that make me just sit and savor them that make a stack of essays enjoyable.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Reading for relaxation
When summer rolls around, I like to unwind with some of my old favorite books before getting caught up in unfamiliar story lines that keep me glued to the recliner for hours at a time! It's so much easier to put a book down and get out in the garden or paint the kitchen walls when I already know how the story lines resolve themselves. Until the house and garden are where I want them to be and the dust has been thoroughly washed off the kayak, I probably won't do much serious reading.
This year, I've go back to hang out with my book friends on the planet Pern. I'm currently on my sixth book, averaging a book every two days. While Anne McCaffrey's books wouldn't be my first pick to write about for an AP essay, her characters are well rounded and her story lines unpredictable and credible. Despite the vast numbers of books, it is rare that one contradicts another, showing that McCaffrey referred to the "Dragondex" included in the books as well as other notes with each subsequent novel. Sometimes my memory ruins a book for me simply due to inconsistencies in a story line. If I had half the memory for student names that I have for snippets in a story line, my life would be much easier at the start of each school year!
I've also read a couple of novels my Mary Kay Andrews this summer. These two books were new to me, but they are such quick reads and perfect for those rain-soaked afternoons when I can't get outside. While McCaffrey's books are equally enjoyable for male and female readers, Andrews books are geared more toward the ladies!
On a more serious side, I did start reading The Remains of the Day on my Kindle while waiting at the dentist one morning this week. It's interesting enough to make me want to keep reading. I first want to finish Anil's Ghost, a book which has me intrigued but which I left in my classroom in one of the boxes or bags that I have yet to unpack! Blogging reminded me to order a copy that I can annotate in preparation for teaching it next year.
I do need to finish The Remains of the Day and Fasting, Feasting over the next few weeks in preparation for a class I am taking at the end of July, so my mental vacation with Anne McCaffrey will soon have to come to and end.
This year, I've go back to hang out with my book friends on the planet Pern. I'm currently on my sixth book, averaging a book every two days. While Anne McCaffrey's books wouldn't be my first pick to write about for an AP essay, her characters are well rounded and her story lines unpredictable and credible. Despite the vast numbers of books, it is rare that one contradicts another, showing that McCaffrey referred to the "Dragondex" included in the books as well as other notes with each subsequent novel. Sometimes my memory ruins a book for me simply due to inconsistencies in a story line. If I had half the memory for student names that I have for snippets in a story line, my life would be much easier at the start of each school year!
I've also read a couple of novels my Mary Kay Andrews this summer. These two books were new to me, but they are such quick reads and perfect for those rain-soaked afternoons when I can't get outside. While McCaffrey's books are equally enjoyable for male and female readers, Andrews books are geared more toward the ladies!
On a more serious side, I did start reading The Remains of the Day on my Kindle while waiting at the dentist one morning this week. It's interesting enough to make me want to keep reading. I first want to finish Anil's Ghost, a book which has me intrigued but which I left in my classroom in one of the boxes or bags that I have yet to unpack! Blogging reminded me to order a copy that I can annotate in preparation for teaching it next year.
I do need to finish The Remains of the Day and Fasting, Feasting over the next few weeks in preparation for a class I am taking at the end of July, so my mental vacation with Anne McCaffrey will soon have to come to and end.
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