Final Summary

The reading oh the reading, I have never read so much in my life. I am not a great reader. I learned to hate reading in school, and it has followed me throughout life. I know and have been told that as a teacher I will have to read. There is not anyone who knows that better that me. I say that to say this….. This class has helped me get over that to take steps in the right direction. I feel that I have let down a lot of other assignments in other classes because I have been reading so much, but I have enjoyed it…who wants to do that other work anyway ;). With that said 60 books was a lot and for someone like me it was almost impossible. I couldn’t have done it with out Prime Time and audio books. Reading is a struggle for me because I have such difficulty. I can read fine for about 10 or 15 minutes, but then the words just jump all over the place. As many books as I could I listened to, so now between the mixture of books on cd and mp3 and dvd and about 40 that I actually read I was able to get through it. I also chose books that were movies and no I didn’t watch the movies. I did it so that when I’m a teacher I would be able to read a book with my class and then watch the movie. I was trying to kill two birds with one stone. Anyway, back to the class I enjoyed the class and it did help me understand children’s literature a lot better.

Working with the students at Tibbetts was a great experience too. I saw just how students could get into a book and bring it to life. If I would have been taught that in school maybe reading wouldn’t have been such a drag. The students were great and I wish that we had a few more weeks to really get into our books, but with everything going on I am glad for the finally. Each student in our lit circles contributed great ideas and thoughts, and I could tell that as long as they have the support they will achieve great things.

I must say to my dismay that I didn’t enjoy meeting at different places. But before you think I’m knocking it let me finish my thought here…LOL I like my groove and when it is cut I get comfortable and don’t want to move. Meeting in different places got me out of my groove and into a new one. This is a good thing because I feel as though I’m an introvert, so trying new things for me is good. Thanks for shaking me up a bit.

I am not an expert yet a genre. I feel that I will be with time though. However, I did learn a lot listening to my fellow classmates and what they had studied for their different genres. Hopefully, I will get them down and recognize them so I can teach my students later on.

Now what shall I get for my grade well honestly I don’t know. I hope for the best, but I know that there are other guidelines to go by, but if be said I wouldn’t mind taking this class again….LOL, so I guess a C or D is in order…..LOL Seriously though as Larry would put it “Giv’r to me Straight and lets git’r done!”

Midterm Summary

Children’s Literature 443

Terrill Henegar

I have to say first off that this class has been very enlightening. I don’t think that I have read this much in my life. I am a slow reader yet I am confident that I will achieve the task of reading the 60 book criteria and more. To give you a feeling as to what I deserve for my grade, well I would be a fool to not say an A. I say that because I do feel that I do deserve it. I don’t say that boastfully or humbly, but I say that with confidence that I feel I have put forth great effort to learn and understand taking in as much as I can to learn the material that is presented, and get the most form my experience in this class. I will be honest to say that I am not as caught up with the online stuff as I should be, but I plan on getting that in gear very quickly.

I don’t feel this class is a waste of time. I enjoy the topics and areas of study with in children’s literature. I have also enjoyed being with the sixth grade students in their reading class. I think that the lit circles are going to go over really well. There have been some very eye opening experiences in this class. The best class so far was listening to Uma Krishnaswami presentation. She really gave good insight to look at books a little deeper than just taking them at face value. I didn’t realize just how culturally biased a lot of books are.

Prime Time has also been a really great experience. I enjoy reading the books every week with my family and then coming together to discuss their themes with the other families in the group. Also, watching you Frances tell a story is priceless J . There may have been motive behind the madness of joining primetime, but I have gotten a lot of good out of it.

The Story Telling Festival was awesome. I really enjoyed listening to Kevin Kline. His stories were inspiring. It is amazing to see people with a disability making good out of life and enjoying it at that. I wish we could all be a little more like him. I thought that his story was unlike any of the others because of what he has over come. I really liked his presentation also, he made you laugh and in the same story almost cry. I didn’t realize just how effective listening to someone tell a good story is. It made me think that when I become a teacher I want to achieve that with my students. That they could learn and share stories from their experience in my class.

The stories that I have read in the different genre have been great. I didn’t even know what the word genre was until this class. There are a lot of books out there that people say not to read for various reasons, and so I have taken it upon my self to read some of those books during this class. Harry Potter for example is a big one. I have gone through three Harry Potter books now and I think they are master pieces. I do understand why there would be controversy because it is a story about witches and wizards yet I think it is written in a way that leaves the craft out of it. I look at it more as good versus evil.

I think most of all in this class I have learned to take a story classify it break it apart and get the meat out of it to really see what it is saying or what the author is trying to get across. I think that this class will definitely help for teaching because what we read or write down in books are our thoughts, learning, ideas, and life experiences. Without that learning would be boring and almost impossible. I always remember one of my teachers growing up saying, “He who reads Succeeds” and she is right.