Dailee Disaster

  I am going to start this off by saying that this is one of the best books I've ever read. From the moment I picked it up I couldn't put it back down. It gave me insight into a world that I had never seen before. What it really made me realize was that what a privilege it is to never have to deal with coming out to the people around you. It's this unsaid rule in our society that being straight is the default sexuality until proven otherwise. Straight people never have to worry about coming out, being accepted based on who you like, and never have to grapple over feeling ashamed or as if there's something wrong with you because of a preference.  After reading this book I wondered to myself if it would have had the same effect for audiences if it would have been centered around two girls. For myself personally, I don't think that this would have had the same effect. This book not only touched on being gay, but something that I think is also very important to discuss,...

  PART TWO: Weekly Blog Journal and Brainstorming      I am aiming to teach my unit plan for 5th grade and some of the goals that my lessons may connect with are 5.1.2.2 and 5.1.3.3 which talks about identifying key aspects of a story such as theme, and how characters respond to challenges. The goals also talk about compare and contrast as well.       There are many teaching resources and activities out there for “The Graveyard Book.” What’s really nice is that there’s resources available for many different grade levels as well depending on how much depth you want to get into in the book. Some connections you could make are to witch trials that happened in the history of London. You could also make connections to homeless youth and the struggles they face. Histories of graveyards could also be another connection as well.  Links:  https://www.rif.org/literacy-central/book/graveyard-book http://trinabright.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/2/6/132609...

  Part Two: BLOG JOURNAL Using either the monthly template or just a regular page begin to brainstorm a rough outline of your unit plan or literary analysis essay. (If you’re writing the essay, narrow your subject down to the two books and the common themes you’ll explore.) You don’t have to have all the details here, but just a rough vision of what you’ll be covering. I will be teaching “The Graveyard Book” by Neil Gaiman.  Week One: Introduce the characters, setting, and the plot, definitions and terms. Read the preview of the book.  Week Two: Read the first half of the book. Make predictions. Make our own headstones for a character of their choice. Week Three: Read the second half of the book. See how accurate our predictions were. Start the final project for the book (creating our own covers for the book with a synopsis in our own words on the back). Week Four: Finnish up the final project and play Jeopardy trivia about questions involving the book.