Goodbye 2014...

At the beginning of the year, I posted 20 goals I wanted to accomplish. Here are those goals: 

Goals for 2014

1. Read 27 books 

2. See 50 movies

3. Lose 80 pounds

4. Get on a budget and STAY on budget

5. Take more pictures

6. Cook and bake more

7. Do well in school

8. Level up Holden to 55

9. Go on a road trip

10. Get a passport

11. Make friends at school

12. Apply to substitute teach and tutor

13. Write more

14. Watch more horror movies

15. Organize my closet

16. Be more confident

17. Love myself more

18. Get more sleep

19. Go out dancing

20. Get dressed up and go somewhere fancy

NOW LET'S SEE HOW I DID! :D

1. Read 27 books. I may have over done it on this one :P

Now 15 of these books were read for school and I have to say, I enjoyed almost everything I read this year, here is the full list:

I can't really pick a favorite book because I LOVED everything I read by Rainbow Rowell. I also loved most of the books I had to read for school... but I guess I'll go ahead and say that Attachments by Rainbow Rowell was my favorite book this year. It was just SO SO GOOD!

My least favorite book(s) is a bit easier to narrow down. I wasn't all that impressed with The Maze Runner series by James Dashner. It had so much potential and really failed to live up to what it could have been. 

My favorite book I had to read for school is a tie between Dante and Aristotle Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz and Bluefish by Pat Schmatz. Both of these books had very powerful messages and I think they are must reads for English teachers (especially Bluefish). 

2. See 50 Movies. This totally didn't happen. I saw 16 movies this year. Here is the list: 

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

Frozen

The Lego Movie (x2)

Divergent

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Jodorowsky's Dune

Fault in Our Stars

How to Train Your Dragon 2

Guardians of the Galaxy (x3)

The Giver

The Maze Runner

Annabelle

Big Hero 6

Interstellar

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies

BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR: Guardians of the Galaxy

WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR: Annabelle

3. Lose 80 Pounds. Yeah, this didn't happen either, but I have figured out why and what I'm going to do about it. More on that in tomorrow's post. 

4. Get on a Budget and stay on a budget. I did okay on this at the beginning of the year, but then I splurged on my new niece and then the holidays happened. Once again I'm going to work on this next year. More details, tomorrow. 

5. Take more pictures. I do think I accomplished that! Here are some of my favorites from this year! (I didn't take some of them, but I'm in all of them :P)

6. Cook and bake more. Yes. I totally did this. I learned so many yummy recipes this year. I can't wait to try out new ones! My four favorites can be found here: 

Whore Brownies... Slut Brownies... or Diabetic Coma Brownies. Call them what you want :)

Another variation I did was with a Rolo instead of a Reese Cup or Oreo. I've also done them with BOTH a Reese cup and an Oreo!

Spicy Sausage Pasta. I think of all of these recipes, this is the one I made the most. I actually made it last night! So easy and yummy. 

Taco Lasagna. I made this a couple of times. The second time I made it I mixed some refried beans with the ricotta. It was yummy. 

Mexican Quinoa. I loved this! Great dish for meatless Monday! I used a can of Rotel instead of buying chopped tomatoes and jalapenos separately. 

Let me know if you try any of these recipes!

7. Do well in school. This year began with my first semester of Grad School, which has been an amazing experience, I've learned a lot and I have made so many new friends. I think I managed to keep my grades up :)

8. Level up Holden to 55. This is did accomplish and since we got a new game expansion, now I'm working on getting him up to level 60! ALMOST THERE!

9. Go on a road trip. I rode a bus from Boston to DC. Does that count? What about coming home from Dragon*Con? *shrugs* Maybe I'll go on a real one next year. 

10. Get a passport. Nope. Not this year. :(

11. Make friends at school. YES! I did this and I am so happy I did. I love my new friends! I am actually about to go spend New Year's Eve with one of them! YAY!

12. Apply to substitute and tutor. This didn't happen because I didn't have the time. I ended up babysitting a lot (which was AWESOME) and was able to do extra work at the Juvenile Detention Center. Which was a fantastic experience. I don't regret not doing this because of everything else I managed to do. 

13. Write More. As you can tell from my failed November drabble posts. I did not write more. This is another goal I'm going to work on next year. 

14. Watch more Horror movies. Meh. Movies didn't really happen this year. Doctor Who did though... and some of those episodes were scary!

15. Organize my closet. I don't think this is going to happen until I move out.. seriously. 

16. Be more confident and 17. Love myself more. These both go together and I will admit, I do think I've managed to be more confident and love myself more this year. I'm going to continue to work on this into next year. 

18. Get more sleep. HA! HA! HA!

19. Go out dancing. Nope didn't happen this year. 

20. Get dressed up and go somewhere fancy. Does Hibachi in a dress count? Preston and I dressed up for our 4th anniversary!

And that is that. I think I did pretty well with my goals this year. One I definitely didn't reach was updating this blog weekly. I have some ideas to help myself update MONTHLY, that I will go over in tomorrow's post. 

That's it from me in 2014!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Well, two months without a post. I am a terrible blogger! It has been quite busy. Grad school finally started feeling like grad school. Lots of assignments on top of field work and both of my part time jobs. I have barely had enough time to sleep. 

November is looking to be a better month. My 38 hours of field work are complete and now I just need to write my summaries and reflections on what I observed and how I participated. I worked at Gar-Field High School and the Fairfax Juvenile Detention Center. It was very informative and fun. Hopefully after this semester is over I will be able to share some of my experiences here. 

So to catch up: 

Dragon*Con was fun, I sadly was sick pretty much the whole weekend, but I spent a lot of time with Preston and Katy, so that was good. Here is me as Kaylee and Preston as Badger. 

Earlier this month I met Rainbow Rowell, a wonderful YA author. This was an awesome experience. She was AMAZING! Read her books!

And today is my favorite holiday, Halloween!! I decided to dress up as a scary clown in memory of Twisty the Clown from American Horror Story. Yes. He was my favorite character... I have a thing for the sympathetic villain. What can I say? Preston was Badger in a kilt. So handsome :D

                        

   

I think that covers some highlights of the past two months. Though there is loads more to talk about, I sadly missed by chance. I need to keep moving forward! So to keep myself on track and since next month is NaNoWriMo, I'm going to attempt a 30 day writing challenge. This is one I found on a random challenge site. I have a one word prompt everyday.

Starting tomorrow I will be posting a short story everyday. I probably will have little time to fully revise them, so please be nice, I'm quite shy about sharing any of my writing. 

I think with a schedule like this: 

I should be able to handle the challenge, especially since my schoolwork will be lessening a bit (in theory...I still have a unit plan to revise). 

So that is that, I'm sorry for such a long delay. I hope you all have had a wonderful Halloween, I'm gonna go crawl into bed with my Preston, eat candy and maybe watch a scary movie. 

Nighty Night!

Pre-Dragon*Con Post!

So Dragon*Con is almost upon us!

I fly down to Atlanta bright and early Friday morning. Preston, my dad and another friend are all leaving to drive down in about three hours.

I'm sad I wont be able to make the drive down, but I couldn't justify missing two of my classes tomorrow night. Especially since it is the first week of school.

Oh well. I'll be driving back home and hey, a 2 hour flight is better than an 11 hour car ride!

So, I have some pre-con pictures. First up is some of my pictures of my Kaylee cosplay. I got some tips from this blog: DIY Kaylee Frye and they were super duper helpful, if you want to make your own. I'll be sure to post complete finished pictures when I'm back from the con!

Kaylee before I hemmed the sleeves.

Sewing on patches!

I tried on the whole cosplay today and I was really happy with it. I didn't want to take any pictures before we got to the con though!

So Friday, some of our group will be doing vampire pirates, but now I am thinking I might be a vampire jedi pirate, cause that would be awesome. Who knows.

Saturday is Firefly day!

Sunday is Earthbound day, I'll be cosplaying as Ness again. This was the cosplay last year:

I'm really excited to do this cosplay again. this was the first time in my many years of going to Dragon*Con where people stopped me for a picture. Since this was my first successful cosplay, I decided to do something fun with it this year.

For those of you unfamiliar with Earthbound, it is an RPG that was released back in 1995 for the SNES. It is the ONLY game I have ever beaten. You can play it now on an emulator or on the Wii U. If you haven't played, I recommend that you do!

So anyway, in the game if your inventory gets full, you have to abandon items. One item that is frequently abandoned is the cookie. The cookie is useful early in the game when you don't have many hit points, but later on it is pretty useless because it only gives you like 5 or 6 hit points. When you leave the cookie behind, this is the dialogue that happens: (Start it around 35 seconds in and stop it around 55 seconds in)


I can't remember when I got this idea, but I was like, wouldn't it be cool, if I was cosplaying as Ness and I just left cookies around with a note that said that line? I decided to do just that.

So if you are at Dragon*Con this year, be on the look out for some cookies abandoned by Ness!

This is the little note if you can't read it:

I totally made that in paint. I'm quite proud of it!

I also attached some shameless plugging of this blog on the back. That should hopefully bring some more readers!

YES, I was able to track down the Mr. Saturn font!

I think that is all I have for now. I still have a small bit of packing to do, as well as some school work. So I should probably go nap for two hours, wake up with the boys, say goodbye and go right back to sleep.

Until next time!

Goodnight!

But perhaps it was only an echo...

This is a movie review post for The Giver. I will be discussing details regarding both the book and the movie, as well as the other three books in the series. 

So SPOILERS ahead!

I first read The Giver by Lois Lowry, about 14 years ago. I was in 8th grade and we were assigned a project to go along with the book. I don't remember all of the details, but it was called Project Utopia and my best friend Katy was in my group. Project Utopia had us creating a perfect society. Our society was called Horrorland and I think a werewolf family ruled over all the other monsters. That's about all I remember in regards to our project, but back to this book. 

The Giver is one of my favorite books, I have said over and over that one of the many reasons I finally decided I wanted to be a teacher was because of this book. I can not wait to teach this book. 

To me, The Giver was my first glimpse into this new genre of Young Adult Dystopian novels. The Giver is a precursor to The Hunger Games, Divergent, Partials, Unwind, The Maze Runner and so many others. I read an article that said, the main reason The Giver finally was made into a movie was due to the popularity of this genre. 

Jeff Bridges bought the movie rights to The Giver 18 years ago. That is how long he has been waiting to make this film. I am so glad he waited. 

When I first found out the movie was a real thing, that was actually happening, I panicked. What if it sucks? What if they don't do it right? I was set on the idea that the movie was going to be terrible. I saw the first trailer and this solidified my thoughts. 

Jonas was too old. The community looked too futuristic and why was Jonas kissing Fiona?

I was also worried about the abundance of color in the trailer. One of the most memorable scenes in the book is when Jonas begins to see colors. I was adamant that the filmmakers would have to begin the film in black and white and eventually bring color back. The trailer had a few instances of this idea, but not enough to make me believe they would do what I had imagined. 

I knew I was asking for a lot from a movie adaptation, but this was THE GIVER. I needed it to be done right. 

I read this article a few hours before I saw the movie and I sorta felt a little better about it. It is from Buzzfeed, so I wasn't sure of the accuracy of the interview, but most of it did seem correct after I actually saw the movie. 

Buzzfeed Interviews Lois Lowry

After reading how optimistic she felt about the film and how they asked her opinions on certain things really made me happy. 

So I bought tickets for the early 8pm showing at the Hoffman Center theater. I was babysitting that day and my dad was in Alexandria so it just seemed smart to meet there instead of driving home. I got done babysitting late, over an hour, so I decided to switch the tickets to the 9:15, so my dad and I wouldn't have to rush through dinner. 

We went to customer service to exchange the tickets and the girl there was like, "Oh we aren't showing The Giver tonight, something is wrong with our hard-drive" 

I stared at her and was like: "Um, so what now?"

Movie Theater Girl: Well I can give you tickets to another movie. 

Me: I want to see The Giver. Is it just this theater or all the AMC theaters?

Movie Theater Girl: I don't know. 

Me: Just give me a refund, we will go somewhere else. 

So she gives me a refund and I'm super ticked off at this point. What if we had come in at like 7:30, ready to line up for the movie and they told us this? We would have had NO time to drive to another theater to see the movie at a similar time. I don't think I'll be making my way back to this theater.

We ended up seeing the 10:30 at Potomac Mills, this was annoying because we had finished dinner at like 8:30 and had to find something else to do for an hour. 

I was feeling very annoyed at how the night was going so I didn't go into the movie theater in the best of moods. I really wanted the movie to suck, because at that point, ranting and raving about something was making me feel better. 

(Side Note: I finally saw a full trailer for The Maze Runner, I finished this book last week and really liked it. I'm currently reading the sequel, I am SO excited for this movie!)

And now my review: 

Let's first discuss the color. 

In the novel, Jonas lives in a community that has done away with many things in order to make everyone the same. This concept of "sameness" is explained with the idea that no one in the community is able to see color any more. 

The more I thought about how the film communicated this, I realized they had very much sucked the color out of the images they showed on the screen. It wasn't quite sepia tone and it wasn't quite black and white. It was just... bland and colorless. 

So in the book Jonas has the ability "to see beyond". The fact that he has this ability is why he is chosen to be the new Receiver of Memory for his community. In the book, he sees flashes of color, but he doesn't realize what it is. One of the most memorable scenes was when he sees the color of an apple and then the color of his friend Fiona's hair. The most vibrant memory the Giver gives Jonas, is of a sunset. In the film, this whole concept with the color is done BEAUTIFULLY! This right here is one of the main reasons I enjoyed the movie so much. 

The movie begins with no color and gradually, as Jonas begins to see more color, the audience does as well. It starts with red, he sees all of the red things, then eventually he begins to see everything else. The movie spans over a year, so each scene gets brighter and brighter. Even if you thought the movie was terrible, you have to admit they did an awesome job with this visual element. I was so happy they did this right because this was one concept I really ragged on when I first heard they were making a movie. 

On to the characters. 

One of the major differences was the age change. In the book, Jonas and his friends are 12 years old. In the film, they are 16. This was obviously done to attract a teen audience and to make the film more similar to Divergent and The Hunger Games. They also added in a bit of a romance. I did NOT like this at all and was the one thing that bothered me about the whole movie. 

I liked the actor that played Jonas, I felt he played the whole loss of innocence card very well, even though he is a 25 year old actor playing a 16 year old. One of he first major differences fans of the book will notice is the fact that this actor does not have pale eyes. This is very important in the book because this sets Jonas apart, but makes him similar to The Giver and baby Gabe. The eyes were a symbol that told the reader that this particular character was special. In the movie, they replaced the pale eyes with a small birthmark on the character's wrist. This is a minor change done because contacts couldn't be put on the babies that played Gabe. (My first thought... why not cast pale eyed babies? :P)

Jeff Bridges plays the title character, the Giver. Though I imagined him to be quite older, based on my book cover: 

I felt that Jeff Bridges did an outstanding job as this wise old man, who has been burdened with the pain of the past. He became this character and I assume this is because he loved the book so much. He is the one who bought the movie rights after all. Jeff Bridges' performance is another reason I enjoyed this movie so much. He really was able to keep the essence of the character, even in one of the cheesy scenes at the end where he tells Jonas he loves him. This is played so genuine, it brought tears to my eyes. 

I can't remember how much of a rebel the character was in the book because it has been so long since I've read it, but the conflict that was created in the film between the Giver and the Chief Elder was pretty amazing, even though it isn't in the book. 

Meryl Streep played the Chief Elder and she is definitely played as the main antagonist. In the book she isn't a major character but I can understand why they chose to use her as the bad guy in the film. The book doesn't have a central bad guy, the bad guy is more of a concept, so I think for moviegoers who have not read the book, this was a good call, plus it was Meryl Streep so it was a great performance. I especially loved the end of the film, when the memories are released back into the community. There was no dialogue, but the acting that Meryl Streep does with her face in this scene is great. 

Now for some secondary characters: 

Jonas' family. Alexander Skarsgård and Katie Holmes played Jonas' parents. I felt they did a good job, even though they were not in the film, as much as in the books. I really liked how the father character was played. He was perfect. Katie Holmes also did a good job (even though she seemed a little young to play a 16 year old's mother but she did a good job of playing a character who felt the rules were super important (she was the head of the justice department). Jonas's sister, Lily, was perfect. She was the cute inquisitive little girl I imagined. They did age her a few years as well, but she still did a good job. I liked the relationship they created between her and Jonas.

Jonas' Friends. Asher and Fiona are Jonas' best friends in the book and in the film. The film makers did their darndest to create a love triangle and this annoyed the heck out of me. First off, Jonas' "stirrings" about Fiona were a ploy in the book to show that Jonas' was exploring new emotions and feelings that had been stifled due to medication members of the community were forced to take every morning. In the book he is 12 years old, so a romantic plot isn't all that feasible. Jonas has a crush on Fiona but he isn't in love with her. The movie makes us think that Jonas and Fiona are in love. This is so wrong and not in line with the book because... Spoiler Alert, Jonas meets and marries someone else in the later books. Her name is Kira and she is introduced in book two, Gathering Blue. She is an AWESOME character and I would hate to see her replaced, if they decide to continue this Fiona and Jonas nonsense in later movies (if they ever get made). 

Anyway, Asher is turned into a pawn of the Chief Elder in the film. This was a little annoying because Asher is supposed to be the "Xander" of the group. Sweet and funny. Instead they make him seem jealous of Fiona and Jonas and then have him chase Jonas down and "lose" him. (Thankfully he lets Jonas go, but this part was a little bothersome)

When it comes to scenes that were cut out, the House of the Old was completely scrapped. Fiona even becomes a nurturer (and an accomplice of Jonas, when he steals Gabe) instead of a caretaker of the old. I liked the scenes in the house of the old in the book. I don't remember why, but looking back, I think it was because the way Jonas interacted with the older members of his community really told the reader about who he is as a character. 

The community it self felt a bit... wrong to me. I grew used to it as the film went on, but over all the community was nothing like I imagined it when I read the book. I imagined as being a bit more gritty not futuristic. This bothered me when I saw the trailer as well but I guess it does make sense, since this particular community was well off. In the later books we are introduced to other communities that seem impoverished, Jonas' community never felt this way.

So other than these little things, (mostly the Jonas/Fiona relationship) there was plenty that felt like it lept right off the page. 

The transference of the memories. This was awesome. Seeing the flashes of various images that the Giver gave Jonas was really cool. Most of it seemed like stock footage and news footage. I especially liked the images of snow and the sled that are so important to the end of the film.

The ceremony scenes. These were also different than I imagined, but they were really cool. They didn't go into extreme detail of each age group, but the ones they did show were done well. The only part that bothered me was when a girl was announced as a birthmother, they showed images of young pregnant girls. In the books (especially the fourth book) the position of birthmother is actually looked down upon and they live in isolation. In the fourth book, the main character Claire, had never seen a pregnant woman before. I'm guessing they didn't think this was relevant enough to keep in the movie, since it is more important in the fourth book. It would have been so cool if they incorporated Claire somehow. 

Okay, the last thing I want to discuss is one of the most powerful scenes in the movie. It is one of the most vivid scenes I remember from the book and they did it... sadly just how I imagined it. 

After they showed this scene (which had made me cry a little), I remember my dad just looking over at me his mouth hanging open. After the movie I told him how amazed I was that they actually did that scene justice. 

In the book, Jonas asks the Giver if he could see a release. In the community, the elderly are released to Elsewhere. To the members of the community, this is a joyous occasion. In reality, the old people are being killed. 

The release that the Giver shows Jonas is not of an old person, it is of a baby. Since the community thrives on order, twins are not allowed. If twins are born to a birthmother, the one with the lower weight is released. 

Jonas watches his own father (who is a nurturer, he cares for newchildren) kill a baby (lethal injection) and then gently place the baby in box and slide it down what one can assume is a garbage shoot. 

These scene is devastating to Jonas who now understands the concept of death and murder. The Giver has to tell Jonas that his father does not understand what he is doing and that it isn't his fault. It is the fault of the lack of memories. 

After seeing this release and hearing that the baby Gabe is scheduled to be released, Jonas begins his quest to leave the community and save the baby. 

The ending of the movie leans towards the optimistic interpretation of the ending. Many readers believe Jonas and Gabe die at the end, but don't worry. They don't. 

Overall I was really pleased with this film. I definitely can see myself using it in the classroom as a great book/movie comparison activity. I felt as though the themes and the essence of the story were all still in the film, though their were some major changes. 

I hope the movie does well because it would be awesome to see the other three books on the big screen. 

Okay. If you have stuck with me this long, you are awesome. I'm sorry for the lack of posting these past few weeks, things have been crazy and they are just going to get crazier! 

Dragon*Con is in 11 days, so I'm definitely going to be making a post about my cosplay before I head down to Atlanta. 

Until next time...

Busy and Boston Bound (YAY! Alliteration!)

So I totally made plans to post this month, I even had blog post topics written down.

Sadly I got busy again and I have a feeling busy is going to be theme until I finish up with school.

Tomorrow I leave to go visit my brother in Boston. If any of you guys have been there, PLEASE comment any suggestions for fun things to do. My brother told me to look stuff up, but I honestly just want to enjoy being in a new place with no plans. It would be nice to be sporadic for once.

I'm taking a bus home from Boston on Monday, so hopefully I'll get some reading done and maybe post some book reviews.

Are there any books you would like me to review? Leave them in the comments. If it is a book I haven't read, I'll do my best to add it to my long list.

I'm currently reading Miss Peregrine's School for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. I'm really enjoying it so far!

I just finished If I Stay by Gayle Foreman, so I may write up a review for that since the movie is coming out soon.

Well, hopefully August will be a less busy month since I'll be done with classes. I'll do my best to try and update AT LEAST once a week.

If you have any suggestions for blog posts, leave them in the comments. Sometime I'm just not sure what to write about!

Until next time...

-Laura

July... ALREADY?

So, as you saw a few posts ago, I posted my schedule for June. So very busy. 

And so very busy it was. Between school, work, and babysitting, I didn't get very much free time, which is why I have yet to post until today. 

I am currently posting from an 11th grade English classroom, where I am doing some of my field observations. It is pretty silent in here, except for the tapping of keyboards. Each student has been given a laptop (chromebook) in order to begin their research on their research paper. 

They are trying to figure out exactly what kind of topic they wish to do. My fabulous cooperating teacher, gave them a handout, which will help them figure out their thoughts. 

Being in a high school is very different than middle school. Being here during summer school is very different then the normal school year. 

The kids that are here, had to pay to be here, they are retaking a class to either get ahead or to keep from falling behind. At first glance it is hard to figure out who is who. This class seems to be made up of some pretty interesting individuals. 

I'm sad that I will only be here one more day, but I do think I wouldn't mind teaching summer school in the future. 

Another awesome thing is that my 12 grade English teacher is here as an administrator. She was my inspiration to become a teacher. It was really cool to see her again, but it was even cooler to have her remember me. 

There are 12 more minutes left in this school day. Then I must go home and get ready to go to my own school and learn more about what it means to be a teacher. 

Until next time...

Fun with Literature Circles

So, in my last post I promised pictures of zombie cupcakes!

My dad had a fantastic birthday and he really liked the cupcakes. They were so good! I do wish the cupcake cake had come out a bit better.Those are really hard to make, unless you have a good way to smush all of the cupcakes together, so there are no holes. My solution to the holey problem was gummy worms, lots and lots of gummy worms. I think it came out okay. :D

Today's post is going to delve into some more teachery! Literature Circles. 

My Young Adult Literature class last semester had seven lit circles over the course of the semester, this gave us the chance to read seven different young adult books. It also gave us a chance to try out the roles and the activity for ourselves, so we would know what it was like before we assigned this to our own students. 

The first thing my professor did was give us a list of books. She had split each lit circle into a different genre. Each genre list contained 5 to 7 books. 

Our first literature circle genre was "Classics", the books included were: 

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

The Chosen by Chaim Potok

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Now the way that my professor had us pick our books was pretty cool, she had brought in copies of each book and had us do a "book tasting". We were to look at the covers, read the back summary and then rate each book 1-6, 1 being our first choice to read and so on. 

This is what the form looked like:

Really simple, title in one column, any notes you may have while choosing and then your ranking. We did this for each lit circle and she collected the forms and then assigned our groups based on how many people chose which books. 

There were only 7 people in our class, so more often than not we got our first or second choice. 

Once we got our assigned book, we split into our groups and began assigning each other our "roles". 

Harvey Daniels wrote our textbook on Lit Circles, it is called: "Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups". This is the book you need if you want to do literature circles in your classroom, he goes over the history, the roles and the various activities and tools you need to do literature circles well. 

The roles are: 

Discussion Director - Leads the discussion

Illuminator - Picks passages from the text to "illuminate"

Illustrator - Draws a picture based on a scene or theme from the book to share

Connector - Connects concepts in book to real-life

Word Watcher - Looks for interesting/new words to define and share

Summarizer - Summarizes what was read. (We didn't use this one in our own circles)

Since our class was so small, our groups ranged from 3 to 4 people, so we had to combine or leave out some roles. We always had a discussion director and an illustrator, but illuminator and connector were are other two favorite roles. 

We were given a week or so to read our book after we assigned our roles and were told what our book was. 

I was the Connector for "Out of the Dust" by Karen Hesse, for the first lit circle. 

I thought about doing reviews for my seven lit circle books, but that would be long for a single post, so I'm going to do some book reviews later on this month. 

For now here are the other genres and books we got to choose from, along with the book I read, so you know the reviews to look out for. If you see any books you would like me to read and review, please let me know! :D

Adolescent Lives and Adventures

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco Stork

Deliver us from Evie by M.E. Kerr

Perfect by Ellen Hopkins

Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher (Read)

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Historical Fiction

Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelson (Read)

Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli

Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko

Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi

Strings Attached by Judy Blundell

Nonfiction/Memoir

Jesusland by Julia Scheeres

Claudette Colvin - Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose

Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo by Zlata Fillipovic (Read)

Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos

Into the Unknown: How Great Explorers Found their Way by Land, Sea and Air by Stewart Ross

Science Fiction/Fantasy

Unwind by Neal Shusterman (Read)

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

Feed by M.T. Anderson

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Verse Novel

Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson (Read)

All the Broken Pieces by Ann Burg

Your Own, Sylvia by Stephanie Hemphill

Witness by Karen Hesse

Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff

Graphic/Multi-Modal Form Novel

Maus: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (Read)

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow by James Sturm

Monster by Walter Dean Myers

After we had read our assigned book, our professor had us do an on-going activity called "Think-Tac-Toe". There were nine squares and in each square was an activity, we had to choose one activity for each book we read. We were not allowed to repeat any activities. 

This is what that looked like: 

Many of these activities were a lot of fun, especially making a soundtrack, podcast and found poem. Since we could only use each one once, we had to be sure to pick the perfect one for each book. 

Now in a regular classroom, literature circles are usually done once a quarter, students meet once a week to discuss a book and as a group they decide how far they are going to read each week. I like the responsibility this places on students, and I think as a teacher, doing an activity like this frees you to have in depth discussions with small groups of students. This is a GREAT formative assessment. 

Well I think that is all I have to say about lit circles, I do have one request, if anyone is a pro at Blogger and knows how to change the format of the blog, please let me know. I have some questions about making my blog a bit more fun. I also hate the fact I can't post bigger versions of pictures, without it looking all ugly. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Until next time!

-Laura