Aha on Fantastic Literature

 Fantastic literature  can include  folklore, fantasy and science fiction.  Fantastic literature seeks to explain or explore  the mysteries of  the world the universe and  the behavior we as humans inhabit.  one interesting fact that stood out to me in the beginning of the chapter was that this genre was originally created  and  used as an escape for the harsh realities  of the children of the mid-nineteenth century. this genre was used to help the children escape the grim realities of the  endless work day.  because many children were faced with the harsh reality of supporting their family  and were forced to work . due to the social and economic conditions in America in the mid nineteenth century many children were forced to work in factories and were faced with long days poor working conditions and these children were robbed of their childhood. these stories came from England and were welcomed with open arm by the  working children because it served as a means of escape from the reality of their lives.

     Quality fantastic literature  meets the criteria in excellence for  narrative  fiction. fantastical literature tends to include  characters from fantasy or  the future world and  contain events that are detailed to the point that they are made believable. The stories are imaginative but still made to be believable  due to the  parameters set with in the story. the rich and clear writing structures create create multidimensional characters  that are consistent and their behavior is logical. The  themes in fantastical literature are  are meaningful which cause the readers to take a second look at their lives and the situations they face on a daily basis.

Chapter 5 Aha Moment on Floklore

 Folklore is one of the oldest forms of  stories. Folklore  began before people could write,  so stories were passed down through word of mouth. Folklore  includes many different types of stories which can range  from nursery rhymes, folk tales, myths,  epics,  legends, fables, songs and ballads which have been passed down  from  story tellers for hundreds or even thousands of years  and  were used for several reasons   whether is was to enlighten or entertain the young and old alike. The stories were always changed or  given their own  style changes by the story teller  to enhance the meaning  or are given a new light  by the story teller. Folklore has lasted for centuries to make their way to many of the books that we now share with children today.
      Some of the quality elements that we find  in folklore is the language and illustrations. the language is  rich with natural rhymes and echos the spoken language. The language reflects the cultural integrity of the early retelling and  preserves the  straightforward structure of oral story telling. The language also  explores significant universal themes. The illustrations  serve as  examples of  the artistic excellence and are used to complement and extend the narrative. The illustrations also offer authentic cultural detail.

 Each of the different types of folklore stories have their own set of defining characteristics which  create  different genres with in the genre. There is not a specific  guideline  for the genre of folklore  other that it being stories that have been passed down for centuries. Using folklore in the classroom  can  deepen children's and young adults understanding of the  stories being read today in classrooms. In many  stories today there are several references to  folklore. Much of the  symbolism  in today's  stories relates to the  folklore told in the past  and with out the understanding of the  folklore  children will not understand the symbolism in the stories  of today. Folklore is an essential part of literacy  and  helps children gain  a whole world of understanding and insight  into  the past literacy. Students need to be given the opportunity to discover the recurring patterns  and structural framework  in which to view literature as "one overarching story". Immersing students in  folklore helps them to recognize similarities in  stories Folklore  also  introduces  students to  multicultural understandings and exposes them to the aspects of different cultures.

Chapter 4 Aha blog response on Poetry

 Poetry is one of the hardest   genres to teach , learn and  sometimes understand. Many  people are intimidated  by  poetry  because it is not always straight forward and contains several elements  that are  herder to teach. as  chapter four states " defining poetry is perhaps the most difficult thin about poetry. It is easier to say what poetry does  than to describe what it is.We know that poetry can make us chuckle or laugh aloud, startle us with insight, or surprise us with its clarity. some poems  express feelings that we did not even know we had until we read them, presenting the familiar in a way that surprises." Poetry in and of itself has several different genres that  take on forms of their own. there are several different types of poems and  and just as many  different ways  to write poetry.
  There are several ways to  assess the quality of poetry. Individual poems  should demonstrate content that is interesting to the reader while being understandable by the intended reader. The language in poetry is innovative  and pays close attention to the choice of words and the use of poetic devices to enhance the meaning of the  ideas being presented. The form  and or structure  are used to help the reader gain insight into the  poetic subject or the overall mood of the poem that they are reading.  In anthologies there is a purposeful   selection  of quality of the  poetry that is being included in the poems. The arrangement of the poems in the anthologies is  used to  create  a logical progression throughout the    book that captures the reader and smoothly moves the reader  from one poem to the next.
I really liked this picture because it says  poets are people who have conserved their eye as children. to me this means that they have never lost their childlike wonder and imagination  about the world!
      During our class this week  we  focused on mother goose rhymes. I really enjoyed focusing on this  part of poetry to see how the depictions  of the rhymes have changed over time and how the rhymes have had negative  depictions that at one time may have been acceptable are not acceptable today. It was also interesting to see the  changes  in the illustrations  over time to stay  current with the time period and representative of the people during the time period. The  rhyme that I focused on was  "The Old Women Who Lived In a Shoe". One thing that I found interesting about all of the pictoral depictions of the woman was that she was always in a dress witch  in my mind refers to an older depiction  of the way  women used to be.  it shows  how  women stayed in the house and took care of children. It also shows how women  used to wear only dresses.

AHA Moment for Chapter 3 Picture books

 Chapter three  discusses  how picture books are used to help children understand  stories. When children  first begin to read  their reliance on the pictures in the books that they read  is very important. Children  look to the pictures  for clues to help them figure out what the book is saying and to understand the story itself. Many times when children are learning to read the can read the words but   are not able to understand what they are reading  because their focus is on decoding the words picture books  help students  begin to understand the readings and make sense of what they are reading.
     There are several elements to the  art in  picture books that  create the  feeling and mood  of the book to help tell the children what the book is about. the elements that this chapter focused on were line,  color, texture, design and  media and technique. The  technique of lines  is  used to separate  different  colors or where different colors come together. the lines in a  picture are used to help create a mood in which the illustrator is trying to convey. Lines can be  either thin ans  swift or thick and  stable. The lines in a picture are used to focus the viewers attention. The next element of the art  of illustrations  is color. Color is  one of the most profound elements in illustrations. The  colors   help to create the mood and  tome of the  book  whether  they  be  cool  blues, greens and purple  or  warm reds, yellows and oranges the  colors used in the illustrations  can convey several different feeling  that the  characters of the book are feeling. the  colors can express some of the  things that  the  word  can not always make clear for the reader. the next element is the shapes used in the illustrations. the shapes are used to contrast he positive and negative spaces on the pages to help  explain the story in several different ways. The texture which can be smooth, rough to convey visual contrast, patterns  of movement and  roughness or delicacy. the design is used to create  meaning and feeling. then finally there is media and technique these two elements are what the artists used  for the artist to create a medium  to work with and can be combined  with different techniques to create an overall mood for the book.

 There are also several  styles of art  that are used to  to make the illustrators work recognizable. The first style the book  discussed is representational art. Representational art consists of  literal realistic depictions of the characters or objects  and events in the stories.  Surrealistic  art   contains elements that  are  not  real and  have a whimsical feeling that tends to create a  child like mindset for the  reader. surrealistic art  usually portrays  images experienced in dreams, imaginations or in a  state of hallucination. Impressionistic art uses light and color  to create fleeting impressions of reality. At times the  pictures  are broken up into tiny bits to mimic the way the eye perceives images and merge colors to create images.  Folk art and naive art depict  certain cultural groups . This type of art  usually contains certain symbols motifs. Naive art  tends to mimic  folk art and  can be  hard to distinguish between the two. In Naive art the  people are usually represented in a frontal  manner and  the objects in the background  are represented in a simple fashion. Outline style  emphasizes the  line  in the pictures and  tends to  reduce the  features and simplify the shapes of the objects. some artists also like to mic the  styles  and  creat a style of their own to set them apart from other illustrators.