AHA, Chapter 9 Bio/Memoir

 Biographies and memoirs  are narratives  of  a specific event or the lives of people throughout history.  Biographies and  memoirs  have several sub categories under the genre  in itself. I never realized how many different types of  biographies and memoirs  exist . There are several important aspects  of these books that  are essential in  making  sure that the books are not only accurate  but that they honor the person  that the story is being told about.
 In order to assure that these books are   written with quality there are  five aspects  to these stories that need to be  the main focus for the author. the  first  is the  accuracy and  social details. The  details  in the  story must  be  facts and   the  sources of the  facts must  be  noted. It  is very important that the author integrates the  facts into the  story line in a seamless matter. The  facts  must  be linked to the subject's accomplishments and  should be vivid and accurate. Then  comes the portrayal of the subject. While writing the story the author must be sure to honor the subject by  avoiding stereotypes, paying close attention to  the development of the character and making sure to make the subject multidimensional. Next is the style, the author has to  make sure the story is comprehensible and engaging while  paying close attention to the explanation of the complex topics that  tend to arise in these types of stories. Then there is theme , there is always an underlying theme which tends to highlight the special qualities of the subject being portrayed . The final aspect for biographies for children's books   the illustrations. The illustrations   must  be  used to help the children be able to understand the time period and place of the subject. they are also used to help the reader  understand the character of the subject. 

      One  idea  that I really liked from this   chapter was to use  biographies and memoirs to help the students study a time period or era  to help students gain an understanding of the people from that time and  learn more about the  struggles faced, the  events going on  during the period and learn about the people in general. In stead of  having  students read a chapter of their history  or science books they  could read about a specific person fro the period to become experts on their person them present their person to the class. the class could  take notes on each person and then have a test on the  different people they learned about the  the accomplishments of each person.

Lisa Cline-Ransome

 This  week the topic of focus for Children's literature was Biographies and memoirs. in  our class meeting we were luck enough to have the author Lisa Cline-Ramsome come  and  discuss with  us the process of  creating a book and the total time period from start to finish  that it takes to create a book. I never  realized how long it can take for a book to be published. Lisa told us that  it takes a minimum of two years for a book  to be published. when  starting off  the writing process  she have to  do plenty or research on the person she intends to write about and this can  take several months and trips  to the library  before she can even begin the writing process. When she is finally finished the writing process  she  has to  submit the work to several publishers to see if they would like to  have her book published and  can only submit the  book to one publisher at a time  so this tends to slow down the process because it can take several weeks or months  for the publisher to get to the book . after that step the  next step is to have  an illustrator start creating the images for the book . Her husband is the illustrator for her books but the two  do not discuss the process of how it is going because it can cause conflict between the two. The illustrating process can take up to a year because there is also  plenty  of studying that goes on during this time. Mr Ransome has to study the time period including everything from clothing to house decorations  in order to make sure that all of the  elements are correct . it  was  nice to learn about  how  she makes the books for children historically accurate when the  things that the people in her books  faced  may  be  difficult to explain to children  of such a young age. In the book  "Words Set Me Free"  Mrs. Ransome  explains the life of Fredrick Douglas and the hardships he faced being a slave. The wording she used  made the story inviting while explaining the terrible  treatment and life that Mr. Douglas had to face before he gained his freedom.

Day One Reflection

Today we watched a video of a lady reading  one of  Patricia Polacco's book  "Thank You Mr. Falker" I truly enjoyed  the book  because  as a child  I struggled with learning to read  and  was very  nervous because I wasn't learning as fast as other children. I also did  not  like to read aloud because  like Patricia in the book I stumbled over the words and had difficulty  trying to read , but when I had to read aloud  my reading just seemed to get worse because I was  so nervous about  what the students would say. I think this  book is awesome  to use in a  classroom because  it can  help students see that sometimes everyone struggles and it is  okay  because eventually  you  will catch up and find your place. It also shows teachers to be aware of  your students and learn to pay attention to their needs.
 Next we  took a  trip to the curriculum library where we  were able to learn about all the valuable resources we can use to help us with our studies. Tiffany was very helpful and informative  while  discussing  the resources that are available for us  to use.
 To end the class we  went to a computer lab  upstairs from the library where  we were able to discuss the  expectations  of what we will be doing during the  course. I was  glad that we went over blogging again because it has been a while since I have done a blog  and I forgot how to use the blogging app

Once upon a time  when  I was a child  I  really did not enjoy  reading  due to the fact that   I was having  difficulty  learning to read. In my home as a young  child reading was not  encouraged. Neither  of my parents ever read anything except  the newspaper on  Sundays which   they mainly got the paper for the  sales  fliers and the  coupons. We had a few  books in our house which were  given to us,  but they  were never picked up and we (my sisters and I) were never read to as children. When I started school I knew  my  alphabet and  numbers up to 10. I knew  how to spell  my name,  but did not know how to write it. I believe this is part of the reason why  I struggled so much and  why I disliked reading when entering school. I was in remedial reading  classes until third grade then for fourth grade I didn’t have the classes  but  in  fifth grade I had  remedial classes again. In  the remedial reading class  during fifth grade  the  teacher previously had my older sister and did not like her so  from the moment I walked into the class she  had a problem with me! She  made it  her  job each week to  criticize me in front of the  entire class and by the time I left I had tears streaming down my face.

 The  first book  I remember  liking and reading  was a book that was given to  my sister  from one of her teachers. The  story  was “You’re Not my Cat” by Theresa Burns. It was about a cat that always came to a little girl’s house  to play and hang out with the girl I loved the book because I thought it was  so funny that the cat would     go to the girls house every day. When  the teachers called upon  people to read aloud in class I would sink down in my  seat to hide and pray the teacher did not call on me. Throughout the upper grades I did not enjoy  many  of the assigned readings which   continued  my despise for reading. It was not until college  that I started to like reading and really discover what  types of genres I actually  liked and  I started to  foster a love  for reading. The first book that I read that  I truly liked was “Nineteen Minutes” by  Jodi Picoult. The  book was about  a school shooting and  was told by  parents students and teachers that were either in the school or related to the students and explains  how the shooting took place over nineteen minutes. Since I read that book I have started reading  all of the author’s other books and  other books in that genre. I  also enjoy reading the   informational education books that are assigned in classes. I love  learning  about how to teach children and the many strategies, tools and assessments that can be used to help  children attain the skills and information needed to move on .