Every Seniors Favorite Month

May is a great month. The weather gets warmer, the flowers start blooming, and school is out for the summer. For most students, it is just summer break. But for the exclusive group of seniors it is much much more. They are finally done with high school. We spend 4 years together just for a handshake and a piece of paper that says we completed enough courses and credits to graduate. But to some it is much more than just a piece of paper. It is their ticket out or just something pushing them on to the next chapter in their life.

The memories made in high school will last a life time. From homecoming and football season, to basketball season and even state basketball, and everything else that comes with the journey. Graduation is one last time for us to be together as a class before we all go our separate ways. Some will go to college, some will start working, and some will join the armed services. But no matter which way we go, we will always have the memories made together in high school. 

Here they go

I read a Facebook post last night from an English teacher I know. She commented about how hard it is to say goodbye to seniors after spending the year with them. I've never really considered myself that teacher. I appreciate all of my students; I think about them outside of school; they appear in my dreams. I reflect on things I wish I had done better, and always have students' best interests at heart. But I've never been one to have a friendship with students.

That's what I thought.

But my heart is a little heavy today as I know I am seeing the class of 2017 in my classroom for the last time.

I found myself seriously sad when I dropped the desserts I had made for my 6th pd class. That was a small offering of I recognize what great people you are and I wish you the best.

Huh. It's surprising what prompts emotions to surface.

Feelings

I would like to share my feelings. I feel as though this class is a dictatorship. I feel like I shouldn't have to redo a homework assignment that my teacher saw and clearly saved. I feel like I should be able to decide if I don't want to do an assignment or not. I feel as though I should recieve the same treatment as others. I feel as though I should get to play games today and the rest of the class should do this assignment that I already completed and is now doing again tomorrow. I feel ready to be done with this class and am happy this is my last day. I feel like we could be doing more useful things then writing crappy blogs that I will never look at again in my life. All of things terrible things I'm feeling is caused by this class and its dictator. :)

Reading blog

I enjoy reading because its like being transported to another world and living the life of another person. Reading each page dwells deeper and deeper into the separate life of another person. What I enjoy most of reading is the knowledge I get from the book, whether fiction or nonfiction, it still applies itself in everyday life. Lessons or moral throughout the book are played out throughout the day that makes me think about the book.

Reading is a cognitive process of decoding symbols on a page to register a message.  A process all to familiar to anyone. Reading to me is a wonderful way to lessen the stress of everyday life and takes you away. Here is a list of books I love.

- Hatchet

- The kite runner 

- Game of Thrones

- 1984

- The Wall

I enjoy fiction books, historical fiction as well. 

fieldwork in the spring

As each year comes and each year goes we have one person to thank his name is the farmer.  He's the man who wakes up at 430 in the morning to go do chores and then comes into the shed to check on the sick cow.  the farmer knows that the cow might not survive but he knows that hen might have put money into it.  After chores are done he drives into town to pick up seed for his planter.  Many people on the road are thinking what is he doing he looks drunk but not everyone knows that the farmer was up till 3am the night before doing fieldwork.

He gets his seeds and then goes to office to ask about fertilizer and says to himself I hope its a good year for crops.  He talks about the field that needs fertilizer but cant afford the good stuff.  As his day goes on he gets home and find that the cow had died after he paid the vet 350 dollars to give it a shot and come out.  He thinks its time to hop in the tractor and start to plant but the field is 6 miles away so he's driving down the road and it's a wide tractor and he has 5 cars behind him and honking he feels bad but he doesn't have a choice.

he rolls into the field and starts planting knowing that their was a chance of rain that day.  As the night goes on and chores are done early he  makes it inside before the news.  As he watching there's a big thunderstorm trolling threw with quarter size hail and strong winds.  The next day comes and finds the field he planted was in the neighbor's yard.  He tells his wife we will have to call insurance guy.  The spring and fall were tough but all farmers push through no matter how hard it is.  

The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture is a book I just started to read today. I'm on chapter eight already and I've learned a lot. It's made me think about some of the choices I've made in life. Most of them were made with no reason, I went with what I want. I will remember the one line "Never sit around and wonder, open an encyclopedia, open the dictionary, open your mind." I used this once already today, I didn't know what a word meant. Instead of asking and taking guesses I grabbed a dictionary and found out for myself.

I am reading the book "Copper Sun." Sydney recommended this book for me and so far it has been good. I think this book is very interesting so far. It is mainly about one person who goes through slavery. She has not yet been sold because I am only on page 70, but I am guessing she is going to get sold. This book is very graphic and describes exactly what the white men do to the slaves.

Rangers Apprentice Book 8

Horace, Halt, and Will now work together and gets to go on adventures all over the world. Later in the book Halt mentions that a cult named The Outsiders are trying to rebuild what they lost back when they still had power, but later on now lost there chance when they tried to trick Halt's brother who later on dies in the end. They fought there ways on how to encounter The Outsiders so they don't succeed there plans.

I am reading "The Lost Boy" and it is an exceptional book. It shows that although foster care often gets a bad rap, not all homes are bad, and they are usually better than the conditions that children were facing in their biological parent's home. Some of David's actions are also wrong, which considering his past, isn't surprising. I don't know if rewriting the book he realizes he was wrong at the time, although looking at my own past I don't know if I've been wrong and still believe I'm right. (doubtful)

Topics are everywhere. . . you just have to look, listen, & think

I've spent a good part of my weekend contemplating the upcoming week's classes (not just Independent Literature, but certainly including Ind Lit). So, what about this blog business. . .

Blogging is your opportunity to explore your thoughts and share your higher level thinking. And it is so much easier than you think it is.

Without much thought, 3 potential topics for my own post have surfaced:

• Rereading

 

• Libraries

• Lit to screen:

After letting the prospects simmer for a while, I've decided to focus on the idea of Literature to Screen. 

I binge watched 13 episodes (roughly 13 hours) of 13 Reasons Why this weekend. Really enjoyable; I recommend. I read the book several years ago. Typical of my reading experience, I remember I liked the book, but almost nothing else. Watching the television show was almost like experiencing the story for the first time. As I watched, I couldn't help but wonder about the role watching a screen adaptation plays in comparison to reading. Is one medium better than the other? 

Part of me (probably the English teacher part) screams the book is better. But really, I think it is an idea needing exploration. 

And one I'll come back to, but for the moment, I have a goal to keep this post short. As you consider the seed of thought I've planted, I'd be interested in knowing your thoughts on visual v. textual.

if YA characters had google...

epicreads.com posted a blog called"if YA characters had google search histories" a while ago. There was not a lot of text, but many images, and even a funny gif to go with it. You can see the original post here - If YA characters had google search. I feel I could have created a blog similar to it.

Google is a great tool to use. If you need directions google has a map for any place on the globe. If you need to know where to eat in a town you're visiting, google has a database larger than the CIA, and all other government programs in America combined. Google is an all around great tool to use, but the hilarity of searches that are popular at any given time is overwhelming.

Some of the top 5 searches on google 2016 were Pokemon Go, Donald Trump, and Powerball. Most of google searches is young adults and teens. Many odd searches also occur though, and young adults and teens are the guilty searchers. Characters in YA books are normally very relatable, or try to appear to be relatable to the audience they are written for, teens and young adults. Because of this, I believe their search history would be just as hilarious as some of the dumb questions looked up on google daily such as "is there really a bacon shortage predicted for 2013", and "where do lost socks go when they go missing?"

A Long Way Gone

"Take a Trip to the Dark Side of the Rainbow with this Dorothy Must Die Artwork" got my attention by the name. My book was about the dark side of the war in Africa which is a good tie with the blog I found. "None of these things are your fault." In the book A Long Way Gone the protagonist Ishmael is told this line everyday. I know I would get sick of it and want them to quit saying it. I GET IT, NONE OF THESE THINGS ARE MY FAULT! It's a good book and shows the struggle these kids encountered while the war was going on. They did a good job on the imagery throughout the book. Like when the guy had his throat slit wide open by a soldier. All hell breaks loose and before you know it blood is all over the floor, the walls, and even you. The book is a nonfiction taking place in Sierra Leone, which if you don't know like me that's a country in West Africa. I wouldn't have known where it was if I hadn't read cover to cover. As a reader I don't like to take time and read the notes on the author but in some instances it really helps you understand the book more. /http://www.epicreads.com/blog/dorothy-must-die-artwork/

Young Adult Anticipation

The blog post The 16 Most Anticipated YA Books to Read in April. caught my eye a bit more than some of the other blogs I looked at.  Instead of referring to one book or one genre like most of the blogs I scanned through, this one went through each book and gave them their own little bit of time in a spotlight. Reading some of the book titles like Alex, Approximately, the cover art also really catches the reader's attention.  

Majority of these books appear to be fictional, and the lesser for fantasy-fiction. The more realistic fiction ones tell tales of the teen life, struggles, love, school. It doesn't take much to tell a story about a unique teen in highschool but these books come off as entirely separate books! I can see why they are considered the most anticipated YA books to read in April. On the road of reading, I don't drive in the direction of teen drama fiction, but more towards Historical Fiction and Fantasy Fiction. Titles such as The Revenant and A Game Of Thrones. I like these books but one book that I can definitely was one of my most favourite was Looking for Alaska, which is a young adult fiction novel. 

Read A Special Extended Excerpt Of 100 Hours

Epic Reads has a blog about the book 100 Hours by Rachel Vincent. http://www.epicreads.com/blog/extended-excerpt-100-hours/
The article dug deeper into synopsis of the book.

The blog caught my eye because I thought at one point in time I wanted to read a book or watch a movie called 100 hours. I will have to do more research into it to figure out what I thought I saw.

Epic Reads has a page about Jennifer Aniston joining the Dumplin movie cast. http://www.epicreads.com/blog/jennifer-aniston-dumplin/ This caught my eye because Jennifer Aniston is someone I see on TV a lot and she is very good looking.

The article talks about how Jennifer Aniston used to be on the tv show Friends and now she is moving on to a different show. That happens all the time with actors and actresses. You see the same people on different shows or movies all the time.

Worse than death

http://www.epicreads.com/blog/kelly-fiore-worse-than-death/

Living with someone that has a serious addiction can be horrible, it doesn't just wear and break down the person that has the addiction. It breaks and wears down your family and friends you have in your life. If you chose to have an addiction that breaks you apart don't take everything that your family has. You lose your family when you have a serious addiction and they lose you. Its like you die when you have an addiction that you chose to bring into your life. Because of your stupid mistake you should not take the rest of your loved ones down with you. You should get help for what you have done for yourself and have help on how to put your life some what back together to get a good enough start to maybe get your family back. There is always a better route that you can take then choosing drugs and alcohol. It ruins people and the life that they have, sometimes death calls way to soon when you have a serious addiction to something that you can help. Its scary to think that you can lose everyone in your family over something so little that you don't absolutely need, even though you think you need it in your life.

The child called it evokes a string of different emotions and thoughts that I don't usually feel on a regular basis. The whole book feels like a pamphlet against child abuse. David is abused and talks about his parents beating him, which I can't really relate to. When David talks about his mother being kind to his brothers and his father being compassionate to David it makes me feel nostalgic to my childhood. I don't understand why his mother is so cruel to him, and not the other children. I wonder if he was doing something as a child that he didn't realize that would make his mother despise him, although this is not an excuse to justify what his mother did to him.

 http://www.epicreads.com/blog/details-on-veronica-roths-carve-the-mark-tour/

The struggle is real

Epic Reads recently offered a post "Attack of the Due Dates" (it includes a 53 second video - check it out)  http://www.epicreads.com/blog/due-dates/ - it could have been written by me.

Libraries are my friend. . . mostly. It doesn't cost me a cent to get good stuff in my hands. The price I pay in stress as a result of impending due dates is slightly higher. Thanks to 21st century technology, I get a text that reminds me when my books are due. Usually my response to these texts include something like this:

• What, no. That can't be right. I just got those books.
• I have 3 books out? I only know where 2 are. Ugh.

The good news? Again, 21st century technology - renewals are usually just a click away. And when that fails, for one reason or another, I feel way better paying overdue fines than paying. . . say. . . overdrafts. 😏

It's been a while

I've used Blogger, in the distant past. But it has been a while, so please be patient with the process.

We'll be utilizing this blog site IndLit2017TV.blogger.com and this tool (Blogger) as we record our thoughts about reading and books.