How libraries deal with materials found objectionable

This article appeared in the New York Times today. It describes how one of the city libraries deals with materials that patrons have challenged. It also includes a link to the form used by patrons who want materials reviewed. Given the posts by Laura and Caroline, I thought that you might find this interesting.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/a-librarys-approach-to-books-that-offend/?ref=books

Book Thief Movie

This is the link to a story in the New York Times (or on their website) that announces a future production of THE BOOK THIEF. You'll see that not much is know yet except the producer:

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/446969/The-Book-Thief/overview

YIKES! LET'S TRY POSTING THIS AGAIN: HOME OF THE BRAVE LITERATURE CIRCLE

Home of the Brave
By: Katherine Applegate

Final Reflection: Literature Circle Review

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Home of the Brave because it was a young adult’s book that discussed a very powerful subject. However, I believe that by writing the novel in verse made the format easier and more enjoyable for younger students to read. I thought that the main character, Kek, was a very loveable character that any caring reader would want to reach out and support during his journey to find happiness in his new home. Home of the Brave truly helped me to open up my eyes to the harsh realities that refugees must face when escaping to the United States. As I read this book I found myself stopping to reflect upon my own life and how fortunate I am to know that both of my parents are only a phone call away and all three of my siblings are alive and healthy. There is so much that I take for granted each and every day, and I found it very refreshing to read a book that I can use to remind children in my own classroom just how fortunate many Americans truly are when compared to other children throughout the world.
I also thought that it was very clever of Applegate to create very short and concise “chapters” that closely resemble the length of typical poem. She made sure to give enough detail so that the reader knew what was happening in the story, but never divulged too much information. Therefore, the reader is continuously forced to use his or her imagination to expand upon the open-ended and somewhat lyrical verses. I was also very impressed that Applegate took the time and effort to truly do some research about refugees from Sudan for her novel. She includes an entire “Reader’s Guide” section in the back of her book that answers questions and shares facts about refugees as well as websites you can refer to if you would like to take action and help end violence in Africa.
Laura Matheny, Logan McMaster, and I decided to use the traditional literature circle format as a means to organize our book discussions. In our first meeting we became acquainted with the novel and shared our thoughts, predictions, and reasons for why we chose to read this book over all of the other options. I shared with my group members that I chose to this novel because I found the subject matter and the verse format to be unique and unlike anything I had ever read before. Each one of us had our own personal reasons for choosing to read this novel and immediately we found beliefs and future aspirations that we had in common. There are four parts to the novel so we decided in our first meeting to split up the readings so that we read the first two parts for our next meeting and the final two parts for our last meeting. Laura sent us an e-mail that list the typical roles students can use in traditional literature circles and we used these sheets as a guideline as we read through the first two parts of Home of the Brave.
In our second meeting we went around in a circle first discussing our favorite parts of the book and what are predictions were for the final two sections. Laura was the “Literary Luminary” and she found all sorts of descriptive language that made Applegate’s words come to life. We found many comparisons and differences within our own lives as well as with the various struggles Kek had to face as he was learning how to survive in a foreign land. Logan was the “Discussion Director” and she came up with a list of questions as well as points in the novel that she found intriguing and wished to share with the rest of us. Logan brought up a lot of interesting view points that helped me to understand the language Applegate uses in various verses. I was the “Illustrator” and I drew a section of the novel that I thought really captivated the emotional confusion and excitement Kek was feeling as he was surrounded by snow and the television for the first time. I really tried to draw Kek’s facial descriptions according to Applegate’s wording. I found the traditional literature circle method was appropriate for the novel we chose to read and for the size of the group we had. Since it was so affective we decided to use the same method for our final meeting, but we decided to switch the roles around to add variety and give each one of us the opportunity to try out different roles that appealed to us.
For our final Literature Circle Laura was the “Discussion Director”, Logan was the “Literary Luminary”, and I was the “Researcher”. We once again shared our thoughts about Kek’s new adventures and the trouble he gets into as time passed. We even discussed how there was one part in the novel (where Kek, Ganwar, and Hannah are trying to direct a cow through six lanes of traffic) that would have been very appropriate for students to physically act out in class as a means of sharing a part of the story with their peers. Laura printed out a list of excellent discussion questions that really made Logan and I think critically about our own personal reactions to the novel. Through our intimate reaction with her questions and our own interpretations of the novel we determined that having a “Discussion Director” is absolutely essential for any traditional Literature Circle group. Logan shared with us some incredibly descriptive verses that helped us to appreciate Applegate’s decision to write this novel in verse. We agreed that this novel would have been a lot more dry and monotonous if it were written in prose. By having this novel written in verse we were able to listen to Kek’s thought process and his progression with the American language in more detail. As the “Researcher” I brought in a couple of articles I found about why certain African tribes find cows to be sacred animals as well as informational articles about how one can get involved with Dafur if they or their future students would like to take an immediate active stance against the violent acts occurring in Sudan today.
Overall, I would say that our Traditional Literature Circles were incredibly affective. Even though our book was rather short, it still seemed as though we were always the last group to finish and always wanted to keep talking passed our allotted time limit. I believe that the open-ended discussions were a great way to begin the book discussion and a nice way to ease into the assigned roles. I think that we chose to use roles, such as the “Literary Luminary”, that were appropriate for this particular book. I wish that we could have had more members in our group so that we could have had the opportunity to try using a greater variety of roles in order to see what would work and what would not in our own classroom. I think that this book is more affective as a “hook” activity for students, rather than a read aloud or an independent reading book. I think that her style of verse writing is important for children to get some exposure with and I think I would use it to begin a poetry unit or for a personal memoire unit. Overall I think this was a wonderful book and I think that this type of verse writing is one that all students should be exposed to multiple times while in school.

City of Ember - Movie Production

The first time our group met together, we decided to try out doing a movie production. There were 8 of us in the group so we thought that this would be a great thing to try out. We selected roles at random for the next meeting.
It was a beautiful day when we met for our first literature circle. We went outside as a group to discuss what we had done for chapters 1 – 10. My job was director so I had questions prepared to keep the group going throughout our discussion. What was great about doing the movie production was that everyone participated in a different way. We had people who did music, art, summarizing, casting, and more. The first time we met, I was really impressed on how much everyone got into the discussion. We probably could have spent 2 hours talking about this book at our first meeting.
The second meeting was just as good, if not more productive then the first. People added on to what was done at the first meeting, or tried to switch it up and do something completely different. My job the second time was production manager which meant I got to pick out important props and scenes for our movie. We were able to really get a lot done by dividing up the tasks and then sharing them. What was great about this too was that everyone got to bring in a visual aid to help them discuss the book.
I would definitely do this with a class of children in upper elementary school through eighth grade. It is a great way to get involved into a story. It is a less traditional way of having a literature circle, but I felt it was a lot more productive then any literature circle that I have been in. I would assign the roles to students at random and have them switch them up throughout the literature circles. I would also have the children do about three chapters at a time to keep it interesting. This would also give them the opportunity to try different roles.
The book City of Ember was a good book. It was interesting and had well developed characters. I feel like it is a book that could really make children think about their world and their resources. I enjoyed reading it and would definitely recommend it for 5th grade.

Twilight

Twilight by: Stephanie Meyer
Since the Twilight books came out, I have been curious about what they were like. I had heard that many teenagers love them, while others had no interest. During this past winter, my best friend read all four books and loved them. At the time, I wanted to read them too, but didn't make the time to do it. When I saw that we had the option of doing a book and movie review for class, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to dive in the Twilight books and movie. Now I am hooked.
Before I watched the movie, I read the book. I enjoyed it so much. I thought this book had so much to offer. Besides being a story about Vampires, it was about the daily struggles of being a teenager, and a love story. This is the type of book that many children can relate too. Bella, the main character, comes from a family where the parents are divorced. Her mom is in a new relationship and Bella is dealing with it. Edward, Bella’s new love interest, is a vampire who comes from a close knit “adopted” family. The characters in this story are developed so well that people of all ages can relate to them. This book has both action and romance.
Even though I feel a sleep not once, not twice, but THREE times during the Twilight movie, I really and truly enjoyed it. Although movies are never as good as books because they cannot capture everything, I felt that this movie did an excellent job of capturing the most important parts. The images in my head while reading, were very similar to what was seen in the movie. The movie even helped me to clarify some of the parts I was reading in the book. The scene where the Cullen family was playing baseball really helped me to gain a better understanding of the chapter The Game in the book. For covering a 500 page book, the Twilight movie really did an excellent job.

Character Analysis:

Bella: When reading the book, I envisioned Bella as a simply girl who was pretty and easy going.

Kristen Stewart played Bella. For me, she was a great Bella. She is everything I pictured Bella too be. Her acting was nothing extra special, but her look and personality were great. I only wish that her character had a little more expression. In the book, Bella was described as fair skin, soft, with dark hair. This is how she was portrayed in the film.

Edward: Edward Cullen was played by Robert Patterson. At first I was a little sketched out by Edward’s character. In the book, I pictured Edward to be more like the way the actor who played Emmitt looked. However, as I continued on with the movie, I really began to like Edwards look and the character he played. It was a good choice to pick him.

The Cullen Family: The whole Cullen family was exactly how I pictured them. When they walked into the cafeteria for the first time, I thought they looked just as they were described in the book. Alice and Rosalie acted exactly how the book had described them to act!

I also thought they did a great job casting James and Victoria. Jacob’s character really surprised me. I didn’t envision him to have long hair, so that was a bit of a shocker. However, I enjoyed his role none the less.

City of Ember: "Movie Production" Lit Circle Review

One of my favorite parts of doing a lit circle as a movie production is the way it disguises the "work" as play acting. There is not much fun for children in reading an interesting book and then going back analyzing everything. The movie production method is a clever way to disguise the work and analyzing as a fun project.
Fortunately, my group was made up of self-starters and we could all be trusted to do our work, so we decided right up front to dispense with the offered position of "manager" (which is the group task-minder, the one who makes sure that everyone does their job and stays on track). There was a long list of jobs to choose from, but we had a large group to spread them around in. We divvied up the jobs by offering them openly to anyone who cared for a particular job, and then distributed the rest by picking jobs from a "hat". We also decided that we would change our jobs halfway through the book. Everyone agreed that this seemed like a good idea to enforce with children. Personally, I think that jobs should be randomly assigned each time a literature circle meets, so that its participants all get the same chance at getting the choice and less-choice jobs. The aggressive child will usually get the favorite positions over the shyer child, unless there is some rotation or randomization of job assignment, and the rotation of jobs also ensures that participants are pushed outside of their normal routine if they are given jobs that are less familiar than their usual fare. If the logical child never is assigned an artistic task, how will they ever be challenged? Rotation also prevents power struggles, and also from faster readers rushing ahead and completing all of their work ahead of time and then slacking off.
Our meetings went well, it was very pleasant to know what exactly to present for the circle rather than having to explain vague concepts or nebulous connections. There seemed a natural progression down from "important" positions presenting to "lesser" positions (it seemed to vaguely follow the order in which our tasks would be presented in movie credits) so there was little wasted time or silence. Since the discussion and tasks were fun, I felt that our discussion of the books, what was to come, what had happened, and how we felt about them, came very naturally, to the point that we forgot about time and Grant had to come fetch us (twice) and bring us back to class!
I can see this sort of lit circle working extremely well with children. It is fun, dynamic, and keeps children on task. It sounds less intimidating than a traditional literature circle, provides enough structure for those who might otherwise fall behind, and has the potential to feed into larger projects. Definitely a keeper!

Lit Circle Review: The Book Thief

After finishing the book, I can't help but say enough good things about it. I chose to read this book because of my interest in the Holocaust, and I am very pleased in this decision. I thought the book was beautifully written, and I would like to read others by this author. I loved the point of view that the book was written in, and how even someone like Death could be made to be such a likeable character.

We chose to set up our lit circle as a movie production. On the first day of the meetings, we talked about the different roles that needed to be involved in this kind of circle. Since there were so few of us in our group, we decided on the most important roles to creating the movie, and divided ourselves up to include these roles. I was in charge of drawing up the scenes that would be used in creating a movie from the book. I thought this was a great role for me, as I feel much more comfortable with creating something through art rather than through writing. I am much more confident in my abilities when I am able to take the time to create something through drawing, or photography, etc, rather than by writing a paper, and I feel like this is one reason why this kind of lit circle would work well in schools; It creates a variety of roles that students with a variety of abilities would be able to work well with. It offers the chance for all students to do well, even if they aren't comfortable with certain roles, by giving them other roles within their comfort zones.

During the second meeting, we shared everything that we had worked on. We talked about the importance of each piece that we brought in, and why we chose to focus on the things that we did, and choose the things that we did for this particular movie production. It was good to be able to talk to everyone about it, and show the information with everyone to be able to get more ideas from each other and to help us to all be on the same page as far as what we thought should go into this kind of production.

The third meeting involved mostly our talking about how much we enjoyed the book, and how much we thought it was a great selection for the assignment. In the end, there were some differing opinions about whether or not the book should be turned into a movie. I personally believe that it would be interesting to see how it would be put together into a movie, and in many ways, could see it happening. However I, along with others in the group, worry that this is a book that is so excellent, that a movie could never do it justice, and would never be able to measure up. But I am still so interested as to how they would portray the character of Death, and who would play his character. I wonder if he would be a voice, or a passer-by in the background, or an actual character that comes into view often in the movie. I think that is what I would most like to see in this ever becoming a movie.

All in all I really thought the book was spectacular, and I can see myself reading it again, unlike many stories I've read. It is a book that almost makes me wish that I would later be working with older students so that I would be able to use it in my own classroom, if not by just having it in my classroom library for students to pick up at their own leisure. I would definitely recommend it to others, and am glad that I was introduced to it.