南投的好地方~ Jodie英文繪本故事屋

在電影台看過 The Time Traveller's Wife 之後

當下就想  一定要回頭看原創

果真  原創有比電影版本更勝一籌

真的是賺人眼淚  好感人的故事呀 

女主角 Clare一輩子望穿秋水 (從6歲到82歲)

等待著她的摯愛 Henry   橫跨時空  或長或久的探望

別被嚇到  這不是鬼片

而是男主角 Henry 得了時空失調症 (真是佩服作著豐沛的想像力)

當無法紓壓時  他便會消失  遊蕩  失落在過去或是未來的時空裡

時間或長或短 

剛剛看完這本書  這是我的第二本Kim Edwards的收藏本

我第一次閱讀 Kim Edwards 的作品是 The Memory Keeper's Daughter (不存在的女兒)

非常震撼  也非常感人  曾經被拍成電影

還沒有時間寫我的 reflection  趁這週末再來整理...

The Lake of Dreams

Into the Wilderness

I made it! Do you know how thick the book is? 876 pages! And it's not about the modern romance. The book took place in 1792. Reading this book is like travelling back in time. When I first unwrapped the package and saw this book, I muttered to myself, "What were I thinking to place an order to this book?" And like I could imagined, it was put away in the shelf for months. It was until that I could not find anything to read, I took the book out relunctantly. And it's like the book has magic, I was drawn to it and could not put the book down.

很短的一篇小說  兩天就看完了

找時間再來寫心得

從幼稚園借回一本書 "教室vs. 劇場  好戲上場囉!"

作者葛琦霞是張湘君老師的弟子

如何運用此書呢?

作者建議  從兒童文學著手  因為故事貼近孩子的生活經驗 

再加上圖畫書的插畫容易被孩子理解

閱讀完之後  再加入創作性戲劇

雖然書內介紹的是中文故事書  也以中文來做戲劇表演

但活用在英語教學上  應該也可應呼出同樣的效果吧!

我雖期許自己是個故事老師  但若是能應用戲劇讓孩子更能理解故事內容

Preschoolers' Communicative Functions During Shared Book Reading with Mothers and Fathers

Purpose of the Study: This study examined whether the communicative behaviors of preschoolers during shared-reading interactions differ according to child age or parent gender.

Participants: 30 Italian preshcoolers and their parents partcipanted in this study.

Research Findings: The findings showed that older children produced significantly more requests with fathers than with mothers but significantly more assertions with mothers than with fathers.

I paused on the words "requests" and "assertions." What do they mean by that?

Then I found out "requests" was referring to demanding the provision of information, for instance, "What is this?" "Where is the cat?" whereas "assertions" referring to naming or describing objects, actions, persons, events, states. For instance, "this is a cow." "Right!" "Look where they are going to wallow."

"According to these studies, during conversation fathers do not manage to follow their childrens's interest and level of knowledge as efficiently as mothers do. They tend to lose the thread of conversations more easily and they have shorter dialogues with their children. In contrast, mothers seem to adapt their speech to characteristics of the child's conversation more effectively. It appears that fathers were less able to anticipate the interests and the curiosity of their older children. Therefore, fathers did not use Assertive utterances to introduce the text of the book, as mothers did; rather, they waited for the child's questions." (Barachetti & Lavelli, 2010, P. 608)

"A possible explanation of fathers' behaviors is that fathers are altogether less involved than mothers in taking care of their children, especially when the children are very young and need more support; in other words, fathers are less used than mothers to scaffolding their children's activities and conversations." (P. 608)

"Mothers were more able to tune the conversation to their children's capabilities." (P. 608)

"Mothers provide their children with more support by introducing Reading utterances through the use of Directives (i.e. requests for actions that strengthen joining attention on the book) and Assertive utterances (i.e., descriptions, statements, and comments that foster understanding of the topic and the child's engagement in the conversation)." (P. 609)

                      A Change in Altitude

          Red, White and Blue

太久沒寫作了  好生疏阿 

偷懶到只把讀完的小說封面  照相   上傳    了事

慘!  不能這樣下去

還是得將之前的好習慣找回來

就從最近剛收工的 Red, White and Blue 開始吧!

When I flipped through the pages of the book Red, White and Blue, the "family tree" caught my eyes. "This author did her homework," the thought came into my mind immediately.

              Magic Hours

           Picture Perfect

           Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine

I have to say that Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine (1987) did not move me as much as her another novel The Knitting Cirle (2007). I guess Ann Hood is not to blame because it is her first novel. After exact 20 years of writing and publishing experiences, The Knitting Circle was released.

This book is comprised of three women-Susanne, Elizebath and Claudia. I think what Ann Hood was trying to depict was how unpredictable life was. There would be no such words as sorrow or grief if we could paint the pictures of lives as we had planned. Susanne thought she found her true love in college. When she found out she was preganant, she fantasized three of them living together, not knowing her college sweetheart did not expect any change. Claudia was the wildest, provocative one among the three. She startled Susanne and Elizebath by telling them that she was going to marry a farmer.

I was preparing for today's class. While I was going over the test items, a reading passage struck me. It's an easy reading, on level with junior high English proficiency, but the meaning it conveys is deep. I quote it here. It would be my constant reminder.

"My school thinks students shoud not only study hard but also try to help others. That's why I was asked to work at a hospital. I didn't get paid for the work, so at first i thought I was helping others. But later I found I was in fact helping myself. The work has changed me in a good way. I used to care only about my studies, but I'm different now. It made me feel good to see other people live better lives because of something I did for them."

Do little, but make a differnce. Yes, I think I can do that.

                                     House Rules

House Rules is a 532-page long novel. It was also the 15th Jodi Picoult's book I have read. I am a huge and loyal fan of Jodi's! This novel is about a 18-year-old young man with Asperger's Syndrom. I knew little or nothing about autism. This book taught me the hallmark behaviours of being autistic- avoiding eye contact with people, having trouble to communicate, throwing a tantrum and having meltdown when autistic kids felt overwhelmed. AS kids can not read between lines. One of the examples shown in this novel was Jacob being sending to the Principal's one day and actually picking up a seat when asked by the princiapal to "take a seat." I admire Jodi Picoult for being one of the authors who dares to challenge and hit into controversial issues. She must have done a lot of research before creating this novel. The qualities in her- loving and caring  move me. She showed respect for those who had suffered and told their stories to people as if she was responsible for it.

"Vocabulary growth may not be immediately appreciated, just as a few drops in a bucket are easily overlooked." I like the way the author described how people view vocabulary growth.

From Journal of Reading Education/Volume 34, No.2/Winter 2009

"Researchers concluded teachers who choose to read are engaged, motivated, and stretegic about their reading and have a strong desire to share their reading with others." It was quoted from Journal of Reading Education in 2009. I was nodding nostop when I read this quote. It's me, they were talking/writing about me! I am the exact type of English teacher who are crazy about reading. And I wanted to share what I have read, and what I have learned so badly. There were times that I wanted to form a study group. Too bad, I could not think of someone who might be interested in it. Well, except for Wendy. Wendy was the perfect person I thought of inviting. She was too far, unfortunately. My circle of friends like Lillian or Joanne, had tons of reasons to stay away from reading. Others like Biggie Chang, or Ms. Hsiesh, were too busy to read.

Anyway, the good thing is I would never quit reading. Possibly, I might need to spand the genres of the books. Poetry or biography maybe.

Some questions were raised in this journal as to monitoring students' reading comprehension. I would like to ask myself these questions before I throw them to my students. That's a teacher's job, right? Right now, I am reading Jodi Picolt's "House Rules." I might as well ponder myself these questions and see if I might come up with something.

When you are reading different types of materials, how aware are you of the strategies you use as a reader? (Wait until I try poetry or biography)

What, if any, aspects of readng are challenging for you?  Lengthy sentences, in Susan Issacs's works. No background knowledge about the previous American history. Jokes I could not even report funny.

What do you do when you are reading and realize something does not make sense? Reread. Look for relevent information on net. Look up the frequently-appeared vocabulary.

What goes on in your head when reading? Pictures. Mental pictures.

Do you visualize when reading? If so, how does this help you understand? Yes. Like I said, I have mental pictures in my head when reading. They helped to locate the setting of the story.

What kinds of questions do you ask yourself when reading? How do these help you understand? The word choice the author made. The characters the author arranged. What was their relationship? What is the twist of the story for? What is the main idea the author was trying to express?

 

 

Come to think of it, it was 13 days later that I post the second book review. Less than 2 weeks! I am a fast reader. This novel No Time No See was written by Susan Isaacs. This is the second novel I read among her several detective fictions. From the two novels (the first one was The Compromising Positons) I have read, it was not difficult to find out that Susan Issacs preferred writing about solving crimes. And she was quite good at designing the settings and arranging the characters. Judith Singer and her former lover Nelson Sharpe once again played the role parts in this novel. It was a duplicate setting of "The Compromising Positions", only 20 years later.

Susan Issacs wrote in the first person. I, in her novel, referred to Judith Singner, a history professor, who liked to claim herself as a researcher instead of a detective when innestigating a crime. It was one of the athor's writing styles of linking words as a seemingly long adjective, such as " "Hello," I said genteelly, though with extra warmth, in my be-nice-to-German-speaking-peopl-so-they-don't-think-you-think-they're-all-Nazis manner."

 

 



I thought it was a book about regret after I read the prologue. A mother had recounted how regretul she was for her daughter. "I have never cooked a meal for her." "I should have taken her to hospital and been there with her when she mostly needed me." Those were the thoughts that came into my mind. Did I watch too much TV? I was wrong. It is a book about a sad mother's love for her lost daughter.

Stella died from minigitis when she was five. Mary was devastated when she lost her beloved daughter. Her life scattered. She could not read. She could not write. Her husband Dylan left her because he could not stand her loftiness. Mary's mother called from Mexico and suggested her to take knitting class. Mary went to Big Alice's Sit and Knit reluctantly. By constantly going to the knitting circle, she got to know some women, each had a story behind.