Twilight

I can't believe it, but I watched Twilight today and I loved it! I haven't read any of the books, and I've wondered why everyone was obsessed with it, but I never planned on watching the movie or reading the books. I'm not a huge movie fan anyway, so I figured I would probably never see it. But one of my roommates went out and rented it, and I got to see what all the fuss was about.

I thought the subject of vampires was stupid because I don't really like the fantasy or science fiction genre that much. But, after you get used to the idea, you sort of forget that vampires aren't real. I'm so surprised that I liked the movie. I liked it so much that I really want to go out and read all the books now too, because everyone knows that the book is nearly always better than the movie! Plus, I got to thinking about it, and I should read it anyways because my students might be interested in it. I need to keep up on what's popular in books so that I can relate to what they are reading.

...maybe I should give Harry Potter a shot next!

Persepolis and Naruto

After writing my compare/contrast essay on The Complete Persepolis and Naruto, I found myself wondering why I'd never heard of a graphic novel. Personally, I prefer a "normal" novel over a graphic one, but I still enjoyed reading these. As much as I thought that I would hate Naruto, I ended up wanting to find out what happened in the end, instead of just trying to finish it.

As for Persepolis, I thought that the book read as a normal novel would, and might have even been able to be read without the pictures, which I found interesting. The artwork was very simple in Persepolis, whereas in Naruto, the artwork was very detailed and showed a lot of action.

Persepolis proved to have a lot of educational value for the classroom. Its subject of the Islamic Revolution reminded me a lot of the Holocaust, and might be a good addition to a lesson of that sort. It may even be able to be used in a History class as well. As for Naruto, I think that although it might spark more interest from boys, it is not really classroom appropriate. There is not a lot of educational value in it, and there are lots of sexual overtones, especially in some of the images. Also, it devalues women, which is something I wouldn't want to introduce to my students.

In general, I think that using graphic novels in the classroom is a good idea. It is a great change of pace from the ordinary, which might spark some additional interest from students. Also, since the text is accompanied with pictures, students with reading issues might be positively affected. Their understanding can be furthered since there are context clues available in the pictures as well as the text.

Wikis

Recently, I submitted my information to the class wiki that Dr. Kist has set up. I think that the idea is great! He selected numerous novels that we will most likely have to teach in the future, and assigned one to each of the students in our class. I was assigned to Beowulf, which was fine by me because I've read it, I understand it, and I like it. The assignment was to find 20 lesson ideas for your book, and post them to the wiki. Each needed a hyperlink and a description of what the lesson idea is. This is such a good resource because after everyone posts the information that they found, there is an easy-to-navigate site including everything! If I need to know a lesson idea for Romeo and Juliet or 1984 or any other book listed on the wiki, I simply click and then read the descriptions until I find a lesson idea that I like. I really hope to use a wiki with my future class, and maybe do the same type of setup, assigning each student a different part of the whole wiki. Maybe it could even work as a review for a test: I could assign each student a different chapter from the book we are reading and have them post some kind of important information from their chapter. Once all the students post their information, they will be able to use it to study from.

Technology is sweet.