MIDTERM Fall 2008

Hopefully in our children's literature course you are experiencing the opportunity to read, read, and read some more, since story is the core of children's literature and of the universe, for that matter. As Muriel Rukeyeser in The Speed of Darkness reminds us, "The universe consists of stories, rather than atoms."

Our children's literature course is meant to be an overview and introduction to what constitutes quality children's and young adult literature; familiarization of various genres and literary elements; and a chance to play. This is an opportunity to tap into our own childlike imagination and play with story. Speaking of stories, which is the centrifugal force of our course, I hope you all enjoyed the storytelling festival this past weekend, October 9-11. Hopefully in the weeks to come we will hear your presentations about your literary elements and genres, play a little with poetry, Chautauqua, censorship and illustrations.

I hope you are becoming more comfortable with my teaching style-that is playful, self-directed, and creative. I wanted to provide you with an authentic teaching and learning environment in Leah Finch's classroom this semester as you  engage 8^th graders into the stories you are reading. Literature circles is the strategy we are using but it is open-ended as each individual, so there will be many ways to take your leads from students in connecting them with you and their stories. Remember it is not so important what the author thinks in a story or text, but rather what YOU think. This connection is the most valuable of all and is the art of literature and teaching. I hope you are experiencing this interaction this semester with your students.

This experience will constitute the breadth and width of our course from now on as you plan, reflect and adjust your engagement with the students and the story.

I hope to schedule more guests for you during the rest of the semester, in addition to Connie Gotsch. Flo Trujillo, Susan Kanard, Anthony Chee Emerson, Kathy Schlapp. Fine artists Anthony Chee has a gallery on Main Stree which we can visit after Tibbetts one Monday.

I hope the learning activities including using webpages to manage your intellectual property is a way of you taking ownership for your own learning, as well as the assignments you are putting on them. 

So far we are accomplishing the Evaluation and Pedagogy standards in our course syllabus.

Jana Wallace will be coming to conduct a class feedback session in conjunction with our midterm so as to know recognize what's working for you and for me to know how to adapt for your sucessful second half of our class together. I look forward to reading your evaluations, too.

Thank you for a fun learning experience together. Frances