Winter Poems

https://youtu.be/vOXnG_V0Sdc 

Amy's blog- Poetry

The title of my book, What Pet Should I Get? Written and Illustrated by Dr. Seuss. 

The story is about a little boy and his sister went to pet shop to get ONE pet. The minute they walked in, they saw all of different kinds of pet they want and they could not decide on which pet they should get. 

This book is a poetry. it contains rhythm and imagery. I would say this is a good book for poetry because of the structures, every paragraphs left you hanging. Not only that, but also the word choices in the book. Emotions also is something we can related, the feeling of anticipation, excitement and nervous. 

The hidden meaning to this book is about how important it is to make a decision. With that said, I think it is somehow applied to the element one, two and six from the Six Elements of Social Justice Education. For the Self-love and Knowledge, it is important to decide your identity and your culture and decide on how to embrace it. And for the Element two, Respecting Others, we should decide on how we want to act by showing our respect for other's diversity and cultures. Lastly, Social Action, we can decide on how we are going to take some action toward to some of issues for community and ourselves. 

In my classroom, I will have chores for students like line leader, morning time leader, clean up leader, and etc. Student will get to decide what chore they want to do for the day. It will help them develop their decision-making skills. 

Eric's Poetry Blog

Snow, Uri Shulevitz, Caldecott Honor Book 

This book fits into the criteria of poetry genre; rhythms of a boy with dog's actions and rhymes of snowing captured my attention swiftly. Also repeating and patterning of boy with dog's excitement toward snowing, indeed, played a huge role in this poetry, it showed the increase in climax of boy with dog's mood and story when he saw snowflakes start falling down. In Snow, a kid with dog was excited when he saw snowflakes falling down, and yet adults doubted and told boy with dog that there won't be snowing at all. Boy with dog was being stubborned and kept telling adults that it would happen, but in the end; everything was white out and snowing heavily.

While reviewing six elements of social justice curriculum design for elementary education, number two, Respect for Others, might be an important role in Snow, the meaning of this element was to show a respect for diversity through students' learning to listen with kindness and empathy to the experiences of their peers. After reading Snow, I assumed the meaning of this poetry was to show young readers that they should respect others' belief and listen to them with kindness and empathy instead of brushing them off. Theme would be about respecting other's faith, no matter how doubt it can be, you still should embrace it with kindness and empathy. 

Kenzie's Poetry Book

The book I chose was "Oh the Place You'll Go" By Dr. Seuss and illustrated by Dr. Seuss as well! 

This book is considered as a poetry book because of the patterns it gives in the book, gives imagery of places you will go and it allows students to imagine where they will go later on in the near future and this gives them an connections of other students because students may make connections of where they want to go and the conversation can continue to grow bonding and connections of the other students. I picked this book because, when I read this book as a child, I never really understood the meaning of it back then, but i I just would imagine where I would go if I could do all I wanted. Now that I'm a college student, this applies to me because of where I live now, makes me wonder what places I will go. 

The social justice of this book, there really isn't one. Its more of telling where you may go in life and that life has different paths to take and to be sure that you take the path where you want to go and not to follow others because that path may not lead to the road to happiness. This book theme is to learn as much as you can as soon as the new places you will go. 

Liv's Poetry Blog

The book I chose is, It's Snowing! It's Snowing! by Jack Prelutsky and pictures by Yossi Abolafia.

This winter poems book explains about one little boy and his dog who lives in a town that is experiencing winter season. Both of them got so excited when they saw snow falling from the sky. They went out to do all different kinds of activities outside with all the snow until it melts and turns into spring.

The genre of It's Snowing! It's Snowing! will be poetry. Author's note briefly explains how Jack is master of rhyme and creates a flurry of winter verse. There is total of sixteen poems in this book. This book is heavy on rhymes like what I mentioned recently, the rhymes in this book are simple and cute. I picked this book because I always have loved snow growing up so I suddenly feel connected with this book. There are some examples of how Jack uses rhymes in this book. Opening the chapter with, "I am freezing! I am freezing!" then types paragraph and repeat that line after. Or he would use the ending rhymes such as cold and gold using (ABAB). This book is perfect for confident readers to understand complex plots and yet easy to read.

This book is more neutral with social justice issues. I feel this book is more about showing how much fun we all can have playing in the snow. But there is a tiny part of social justice, respect of others, that could be included based on students' experiences with snow. Ideas I would use related to this book by having students write their own poetry about their favorite season or to write their poetry about their favorite outdoor activities. There are different idea possibilities to use for this book. 

Casey's Poetry Blog

The poetry book I chose is called, "The Spider and the Fly" based on the 1829 poem by Mary Hewitt with illustrations by Tony DiTerlizzi. Established in 2003, this book was selected as a Caldecott Honor Book. This poetry book occurs during a dark period, where the black and white pictures is a symbol of evil. This book contains rhymes, rhythm, and imagination since spiders and flies speaking is not realistic.

The Spider and the Fly tells of a story of a spider who ensnares a fly through the use of seduction and flattery. This poetry book is a tale against those who use flattery and charm to disguise their true evil intentions. As far as social justice, the moral of this poetry book is to teach young children to not fall for someone's seduction just because they may not turn out to be who they truly are. I believe the moral of this book is also a tool I can use to teach children to always watch their back.

Love that Dog blog ( Poetry book)

The book I chose is called "Love that dog" by Sharon Creech.

The story is about a boy named Jack who really doesn't like poetry. His teacher motivated him to write poems about things he liked, one specific was about a blue car. After writing and practicing poems he realized he was smart enough to write his own poems and started enjoying writing them. after meeting one of his favorite authors he decides to write about the sad experience experience of his dog dying. In the end he realized that writing was fun and could help him deal with the painful memories of the past and help him cope.

according to the six elements of social justice this book incorporated awareness raising for poetry, The young boy thought only girls write poetry but with the encouragement of his teacher she helped him realized how pleasurable writing poetry is and helped him with his creativity. he began writing more and more creatively and enjoyed it so much. Second, Respect for others, is an important thing as well in the story. In most of his work he doesn't want his name on any of his poems because he doesn't want his classmates to know he wrote them because he truly felt only girls wrote poetry. His class was accepting of the poetry regardless of the anonymous name or not. Lastly, self love and knowledge played an important role in this story. He realized how much he really loved writing poetry and continued to learn to write better and better every time he learned to accept it and love that trait about himself. This book shows that each person has their own kind of creativity even if you think its acceptable or not, gender has no label with what each can and can not do. 

Example of a BLOG for Historical Fiction

     



The book I chose is Good-bye Havana! Hola New York! by Edie Colon and illustrated by Raul Colon.

The story takes place in early 1960 in Cuba during the time of the revolution, when Fidel Castro ruled Cuba. The main character, Gabriela  tells of how her family moved to the Bronx, in New York. They immigrated in order to escape the harsh hand of Castro.

Good-bye Havana! Hola New York! is a historical fiction. The author Edie includes an editor's note explaining that the events all happened to him and that he invented the character of Gabriela to better tell the story. I chose this book because this story reminds me of a friend and what they went through in the 1960's. This story seems superficially innocent, but, within it the underlying reality of life in Cuba during that time can be seen. Growing up, I heard all of the stories from my friend and learned a great deal of how life was like there. Knowing where we come from is important to self-identity. This book is a good starting place where I can begin to explain where we are from and introduce our cultural heritage. 

The social justice portion of the book is evident withing the political tones threaded throughout the book. Included are the resistance, the overthrow of the old government and the takeover of the country by Castro as well as what happened after Castro came to power. According to Six Elements of Social Justice Curriculum, the themes covered in this book include self-love and knowledge where students learn who they are and where they come from as well as respect for others in learning about other students' experiences. This also allows for discussion about social injustice and how these forms of oppression affect different communities.