Ramona

My students' persuasive essays had waited a month, and they were going to be graded over Thanksgiving Break. When I packed everything to take to Mom and Dad's, I also included a box of essays. I didn't start grading until Friday. I set small goals for myself and accomplished a lot. I also needed a reward to bribe myself to keep grading: reading. That's right. I bribed myself with the chance to read a chapter from a hilarious book after I had graded two or three essays. The chapters never lasted long enough. My books of choice? The Ramona Quimby series.

In my last post, I wondered why people would want to re-read a series (or just a book in general), but now I am eating my words! I had so much fun reading the Ramona series. In the span of three days, I read the six books that I owned of the series. Once I finished grading my allotted essays for the day, I feverishly read another Ramona book. I even read part of one while I watched the Bedlam game!

If you aren't familiar with Ramona, let me bring you up to speed. Ramona is a creative, thoughtful, determined, and sometimes defiant little girl who lives with her dad, mom, and all-too-perfect older sister in Oregon. Ramona invariably gets into trouble at home or school and must suffer the consequences. She can't stand it when her friend Howie remains calm because she likes people to be excited. She does not like goody-goodies and demands accuracy from all people.

The series begins when Ramona starts school in kindergarten. Ramona always wants her teachers to like her and has a great amount of respect for them. Perhaps I subconsciously remembered this when I chose to become a teacher. I knew I would have the love and respect of younger people. Ha! Probably not, but it's a funny thought. Anyway, the books blaze by quickly, so you should check one out from your local library.

"Required" Novels

Do you like being told what to do? For me, it depends. Most teenagers, though, don't like to be bossed. That's why you have to order them around in nice, creative ways. Ha! :)

I'm thinking about this subject because one of my students in Reading for Fun talked about this today. He said, "I actually like the books that we are required to read in English class. But just knowing that I'm being forced to read a book makes me not want to read it. I know I can still pass the test--even if I don't read it."

"Oh yeah," a female student chimed in. "I made a 100 on The Life of Pi quiz, and I haven't even read it yet."

"And I easily passed the test on The Scarlet Letter," the male student continued.

I found this information to be fascinating. "So you'd rather be reading a book of your own choice?" I asked them. The students agreed with me quickly.

This makes me want to experiment in my English class. What if I tossed out all the "required" novels and simply asked students to read ten books of their own choice in one semester? I could have the students do a creative project with each book to show that they had read it. We could get our literature analysis through short stories that we read in class. There's actually precedence for this. An English teacher from Arkansas wrote about doing this assignment with her students in the most recent issue of English Journal.

What do you think? Do students need to be "forced" to read the classics or "literary" n0vels?

Second Time Around

Do you ever make time to reread a book? I hardly do. There are so many good books to read that I feel rereading a book is usually a waste of time. It blows my mind that my high school students sometimes reread the Harry Potter series. I'm all for students reading for fun, so I don't stop them from going back to Hogwarts. But rereading a series indicates to me that a reader is immature. Why not try something new?

All the same, I recently reread The Kite Runner because I was teaching it for the first time to my sophomores. I had read Kite Runner while I was in college, but I could not remember all the details, thus the reread. I added this acclaimed novel to the curriculum this year after I cut out The Natural. I don't like to use pre-made quizzes and tests. I write my own. Plus, I wanted to lead discussion on the novel based on my own reading experience, and not on an online summary.

I know some English teachers do not reread a novel each time that they teach it. They just reuse their notes from the past, which is understandable. Not every teacher has time to reread a book year after year. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed my second go round with this novel. I picked up on the foreshadowing this time--there was a lot of it--and I understood the characters better. There was even one small part of the plot that my students explained to me during discussion that I had never understood before!

What novel(s) do you like to reread?

Twilight

Have you heard of Twilight? It's a teen book series about a girl who falls in love with a vampire. Twilight, the first book in the series, was published in 2005, and now it will release as a movie in about two weeks. There's a lot of buzz about this movie, so I hope that fans are not disappointed.

Except that they all will be in at least one aspect.

You see, the author, Stephenie Meyer, describes the heroic, hunky vampire Edward as so perfect that no human could realistically portray him. This was my biggest beef with the book: Edward's perfection. I got tired of hearing about his alabaster skin, his tight muscles, his copper hair, his amber eyes. Edward's god-like body (Stephenie's words--not mine) was mentioned a lot. Probably 70% of the book is comprised of a description of Edward's body or Bella's reaction (fainting, staring, lusting, etc.) to it. Not much action or suspense going on.

I have other issues with this book as well, but I will not bore you with them. I read Twilight because so many of my students were reading it, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I mean, I jumped on the Harry Potter train, and I was soon thrilled to be riding the Hogwarts Express. However, I am jumping off the Twilight bandwagon. The series, for me, will remain unread.

Twilight rating: 4/10