Author Study Unit: Katherine Applegate

 

Katherine Applegate is an American children fiction and young adult writer. Born October 9, 1956 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. However, she has lived all over the country including Texas, Florida, California, Minnesota, Illinois, and North Carolina. She even lived in Italy for a year. After that she in her husband settled in Irvine California. She is the mother of three children and quite a few pets ("Reading Rockets", 2021).

“I write to see where I’ve already been. I read to see where I might yet go. A good book is like GPS for the soul.” -Katherine Applegate

Katherine got her start when she served as a ghostwriter for Sweet Valley Twins in 1997 alongside her husband, author Michael Grant. She is well known for her science fiction and fantasy series. However, she has also written realistic fiction novels ("Kiddle", 2020).

Growing up Katherine viewed herself as a reluctant reader. In fact, she hated reading. To this day she still considers herself to be a “slow reader” she thinks this has a lot to with the reason she writes short books. She thought reading was boring until she found the book that she believed was written just for her. She would tell students, “There’s a book out there that’s like your best friend. And when you find it, your life will change.” For her, that book was Charlotte’s Web. I think her story along is worth retelling in the classroom. We may have students in our classes, who may share some of those same feelings, who may be a reluctant reader. I think it’s important for students to see that those feelings towards reading can very well change. I think Katherine story can change lives. Students need to see her achievements, read her books, and know that they can do it too.

Featured Books by Katherine Applegate:

Crenshaw

Endling

Home of the Brave

Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla

Roscoe Riley Rules #1: Never Glue Your Friends to Chairs

The One and Only Bob

The One and Only Ivan

Wishtree

 

Awards and Honors:

2008 Golden Kite Award for Fiction: Home of the Brave

2013 John Newbery Medal: One and Only Ivan

Literature Unit: 2nd Grade	Literature Unit 5th grade
Book: Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla	Book: One and Only Ivan
Reading Objective:  By the end of this unit students should be able to use information gained from illustrations and words in print to demonstrate an understanding of its characters, setting, or plot. Students will understand and use different text features such as caption, bold print, subheading, glossaries, indexes, menus and icons. Students will be able to identify author’s purpose ("Walton Academy ", 2018).	Reading Objective:  By the end of this unit students will be able to discuss the importance of a part of the story to the whole or the part of a nonfiction text to the whole. They will be able to explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text, identifying which reasons and evidence support which point(s) ("The School District of Clayton", 2012-2021).
Writing Objective:  Student will demonstrate and practice three kids of writings ·        Opinion: student’s thoughts ·        Informative: true and fact based ·        Narrative: story style writing	Writing Objective:  Students will be able to conduct short research projects that uses and evaluate several sources to build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic. Students will draw on relevant information from experiences from print and digital sources and paraphrase information in notes and finished work. Students will provide a list of sources ("The School District of Clayton", 2012-2021).

 

 

Assessment for Writing:

Students will have learned and practiced writing three kinds of writings at this point into our school year. For this assessment students will be tasked to complete an opinionated writing piece. They have learned that they can disagree, or feel strongly about a book/decision/movie/food ect. as long as they can explain their reasons. Students will be expected to use their knowledge to produce a writing piece that reflects correct spelling, and punctuation. They will be allowed time to revise and make corrections. We always want to encourage a level a critical thinking for our students. This will be implemented through writing as well. After reading Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla by Katherine Applegate. Students will be given three writing prompts to choose from, the prompt will allow students to think deeper about the way they feel about the book as well as providing support/reasons to justify those opinions.

 

Wringing Prompt:

1.      In your Opinion what are the strengths and weaknesses of Ivan’s character in this story? What evidence can you provide?  

2.     Do you like the way the story ended? Why or why not? How would you prefer the story to end?

 

 Assessment for Reading:

During this unit, 5^th grade students will be reading One in Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. Students will be given several formative assessments that will allow teachers to conduct progress monitoring, and gain a better understanding of student’s comprehension and or learning needs.

Round Robin Chart: Students will break into groups of 4 or 5.  Students will be provided chart paper and markers. A different open-ended question will be written on each chart. Each group will start with a chart, this chart will be rotated around the room for each group to answer.

Class Discussion: Teacher will use the strategic questioning strategies that will force students to think in a higher order. Examples: Why do you think the Author choose a Circus for the place of captivity? Do you think the author purposely made Ivan a Gorilla to incite fear? What evidence did the author provide to support your response?

Exit/Admit Tickets: Students will be given an index card with a reading response question of the section of the book covered during that reading block. Students will drop the index card into a bin on the way out the door.

Quiz: Kahoot of Go Formative platform

 

Summative Activity:

5^th grade Reading Objective:

Students will be able to conduct short research projects/portfolio that uses and evaluate several sources to build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.

 

After this unit students will complete a final project or portfolio based on the story One in Only Ivan. Students will be provided a rubric that will outline all requirements and weighted percentage of each part. The portfolio should include a short bio on Katherine Applegate, summary of the story including characters, setting and plot, Key details and an explanation of the authors purpose from those details. Portfolio should be organized and turned in at the end of the unit.

 

References:

 

Kiddle(2020). https://kids.kiddle.co/Katherine_Applegate#:~:text=Katherine%20Alice%20Applegate%20(born%20October,Everworld%2C%20and%20other%20book%20series.&text=She%20won%20the%20Best%20New,in%201997%20in%20Publishers%20Weekly.

Reading Rockets(2021). https://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/applegate#bio

The School District of Clayton (2012-2021). https://www.claytonschools.net/Page/13457

The School District of Clayton (2012-2021). https://www.claytonschools.net/Page/18483#:~:text=Readers%20in%20fifth%20grade%20can,support%20which%20point(s).

Walton Academy (2018). https://waltonacademyk5.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/2nd-Grade-English-Language-Arts-Goals-and-Objectives.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

Issues and Trends Interview

         This week I had the pleasure to interview our very own media specialist. She has been here with us for 4 years. However, she has been teaching and serving students in our community for twenty years. In our building she serves as a teacher, and valuable resource to students, staff and our administrators. She is our Technology hero! This school year she has served as the liaison for parents and staff as the district rolled out a new platform in CTLS that was implemented to keep our scholar learning during the pandemic. She made sure ALL students who needed a device received one. We are very appreciative of her support and dedication to our staff and students. She has been the heart of the building during such an unfortunate time.

        During the interview process we discussed her duties, as media center specialist and of course some of the issues and trends in children’s literature. A lot of our discussion was centered around this global pandemic and the many ways she has tried to reach our scholars both virtual and face-to-face. The first issue was the device shortage for the students in our community. The first day of school was August 3, 2020 at the time we were 100% virtual but only 60% of our students had received devices. There was a shortage district wide. Without devices our scholars could not learn. Without devices our scholars lacked daily instruction from our amazing teachers and resources for reading. It was disaster. However, she made a request for Title 1 funds, and it was received. By October 5, 2020, almost 100% of our scholars had devices and was logging in to CTLS every day. While on the subject of Technology I asked her, what type of technology is used throughout the school for reading, and how do you feel about this technology being used for reading? She responded,

“Every classroom in our school had access to class iPads that stay in the classroom all day. They also have access to desktop computers that are used throughout the day and each classroom has an interactive board that's used for instruction. Our students live in a technology rich world and being able to be educated in a technology rich classroom better prepares them for life outside and beyond our walls.”

It is extremely important to meet our students where they are. She said it best, our students live in a technology rich world. So, we must implement literature through technology. I wanted to know if she noticed any treads in our building. She expressed to me that there has been a really strong emphasis on diversity and cultural awareness in children literature. I think it’s important for educators to address the cultural diversity in the classroom. We cannot control the capacity of hate in our country but we can teach our students the importance of equality and respect. Our library has tons of books and resources available for teachers, students and families. Outside of that she didn’t want to ignore the concern that many of you may have with book selections. I know a lot of parents are concerned with the common core or state standards and if the two have affected the book selection for the library and or the classroom. Her response to this was,

“I think that in some ways Common Core state standards have affected the book selection for the library and class individual classrooms, especially in their nonfiction selections, but in lots of other ways classics are classics and kids love what kids love and I think that as a library and I know the individual teachers also are keeping that in mind so some books are based on Common Core state standards some plenty of other books are based on student interest in student preference”

As you know we keep our library open on Wednesdays (district remote day) so that virtual scholars have access to library books during the pandemic. We keep them open so these students can up with their families and return books and check out new ones. We also have a book cart outside where their materials pick up is so that they can freely take books from there. As far as the resources that have been available to them, there's always their relationship that Cobb schools has with the Cobb library system where any student with a Cobb County email address or student number is automatically eligible and ready to check books out from any Cobb County library. Since the beginning of the pandemic there has with online resources for our students. Despite the challenges we have faced this school year, we have not lacked in our efforts to keep our scholars reading. I will leave you with the words from our sweet media specialist,

“I love getting to work with ALL the teachers and students at my school and supporting their learning through technology. I like getting to watch the students find books that they enjoy and feel successful after reading. It truly warms my heart. The best thing that families can do to have a positive impact on their child's reading development is to simply read with them. It's just about setting aside a few minutes every day to sit down with your child, read a book and also setting time aside for you to sit down and read a book and modeling those reading behaviors. It takes a village.”

Resources

Cobb Digital Library

Cobb Public Library

Head Sprout: Reading A-Z

Storyline Online

Scholastic 

Trending Authors and Books

Rita Lorraine Hubbard, Lesa Cline-Ransome, John Parra, Leah Henderson, Nikki Shannon Smith, Angela Dominguez, Susan Muaddi Darraj, Lyla Lee, Angela Dominguez, Sylvia Townsend

 

References:

 Cobb Summer Reading (2021). https://www.cobbsummerreading.com/

Georgia Department of Education (2021). https://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Curriculum-and-Instruction/Pages/Children's-Reading-Resources--.aspx

Graphic Novels

Graphic Novel

Traditional Novel

The main 3 criteria of a graphic novel consist of panels, gutters and balloons or bubbles.   Panel: Panels are the typically square or rectangular boxes that contain the action of the story in a graphic novel (Galda, Ling, & Cullinan 2016   Gutter: Gutters are the spaces between the panels. Gutters are one of the most important meaning-making elements of a graphic novel (Galda, Ling, & Cullinan 2016   Balloons or Bubble: Speech balloons, or word bubbles, are another important element in meaning making in a graphic novel. The shape, size, and even color of a speech balloon can indicate the tone or the emotion of the words spoken within the balloon. (Galda, Ling, & Cullinan 2016 Examples: Lunch lady, Amulet, Babymouse,  he Flying Beaver Brothers, Bird and Squirrel, CatStronauts,The Tree House and Binky

There are six types of traditional literature: Ø  FABLES. Ø  LEGENDS. Ø  FOLK TALES. Ø  FAIRY TALES. Ø  MYTHS. Ø  TALL TALES. Characteristics of  Traditional Novels   Based in oral tradition with no known author. Anytime and anyplace (once upon a time in a place far away). Common ending (they lived happily ever after). Often magical. Typically, evil is defeated and hero/heroine triumphs. Contain universal truths and values of time. Were sometimes used to instruct children in values. Contain common narrative motifs and common themes.   Examples: Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Red Riding Hood, Snow White. Sleeping Beauty, Rumplestiltskin, Hansel and Gretel, Bremen Town Musicians, Three Little Pigs, East of the Sun and West of the Moon.

    According to "Buffalo & Eric County Public Library "(2015), “Graphic Novel is a format, not a genre. Graphic novels can be fiction, non-fiction, history, fantasy, or anything in-between. Graphic novels are generally standalone stories with complex plots” (What are Graphic Novels?). Graphic Novels have three main criteria which includes panels, gutters, and balloons or bubbles. These three features can be implemented in the classroom while teaching dialog. This will offer young readers a visual on who’s speaking. Graphic novels could also serve as a guide for students as they create their own dialogue in narratives, with their own interactions with different characters. Students could also work with a classmate and create their own short story using balloons or bubbles. The criteria of graphic novels could be implemented in social studies as well. Students could create a timeline with panels for the text. During reading panels could be used for sequencing of event in a story, in three parts beginning, middle and end.  

    Graphic novels are different as they are unique, and can entice a reluctant reader. According to "Scholastic "(2021) “graphic novels add the extra support kids need to help them through a text. They tend to be particularly captivating for kids, and the combination of text and pictures provides context for stories that they may otherwise not completely understand” (3 Ways Graphic Novels Benefit Reading Skills). Not only are graphic novels engaging, but they are full of text that students can decode, analyze and comprehend. Graphic novels can keep any child interested with its, plot twist and bold images.

Here are some of my favorite Graphic Novels that I encourage you to read:

I would recommend The Witches written by, Roald Dahl for our third through fifth grade students. This graphic novel tells the story of an eight-year-old boy who loves to hear stories told by his Grandmother about who happens to really believe witches are real. The boy loved her stories until he learns that the witches do not like children, in fact the witches had a crazy outrageous plan for all the children… you’ll have to read the book to find out what that plan is… it’s so good! ("Scholastic ", 2021).

 I would also recommend the entire Captain Underpants Collection in full color. This collection comes with three books, The Adventures of Captain Underpants, Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets and Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space. I absolutely love Captain Underpants books. These books tell the story of two boys George and Herold. George and Harold are in fourth grade, and they enjoy playing jokes and creating comic books. They created a silly hero in their comic books. His name was Captain Underpants. Guess what? Captain Underpants comes to life! George and Herold were not ready… read these books so you can find about all about their adventures with Captain Underpants. ("Scholastic", 2021).

Galda, Ling, & Cullinan,. Literature and the child. Cengage.

Buffalo & Eric County Public Library (2015). https://www.buffalolib.org/get-graphic/what-graphic-novel

 

Scholastic (2021). https://www.scholastic.com/parents/books-and-reading/raise-a-reader-blog/3-reasons-graphic-novels-can-be-great-young-readers.html#:~:text=Graphic%20novels%20are%20engaging.,may%20otherwise%20not%20completely%20understand.&text=Graphic%20novels%20are%20engaging.,may%20otherwise%20not%20completely%20understand.

Scholastic (2021). https://shop.scholastic.com/parent-ecommerce/books/captain-underpants-color-collection-1-3-9780545870115.html

Scholastic (2021). https://shop.scholastic.com/parent-ecommerce/books/the-witches-the-graphic-novel-9781338677447.html

My name is Ms. Price. I am a second-grade teacher here at Bryant Elementary school. This is my first-year teaching; however, I’ve served in education for ten years. Just like the students here at Bryant, I have a passion for reading. The purpose of this blog is to educate our parents on the importance of quality children’s literature in the development of your young readers outside of the classroom. This week I will share with you one of my favorite children’s books, some fun activities and current ideals on children’s literature as well as some recommendations of books and authors for you all to explore with your children at home. I hope is that this blog will serve as a resource as began to bridge the gap between home in school.  

This week book is, The Sky is the Limit written by, Kim Lchter Eldredge. I would recommend the book to our Kindergarten – Second grade scholars. This book encourages students to see the limitless things they can be when they grow up. It provides positive affirmations such as:

 

I will always try my best

I believe in myself

I will follow my dreams

I will never be afraid to be different   

 

This book is designed for ALL students regardless of cognitive, and or physical disabilities. In the story the judge is blind (justice is blind.) Throughout the book students are encouraged to shoot for the stars and aim for the sky. This book is jam packed with so many different occupations from architects for our students who like to draw, a choreographer for out TikTok lovers, an engineer, world traveler, judge, teacher, athlete, doctor, photographer, veterinarian, performer, farmer, graphic designer, politician, a captain of a ship, woodcarver, ice sculptor, mountain guide, the possibilities are limitless. This book explains to our children that there will be naysayers, and the importance for them to believe in themselves.  

 

You could read this book at home with your children. It’s a conversation starter, and allows their young minds to see beyond their lives today. I would encourage you to ask your children to recall details about the story. You could allow them to write about what they want to be when they grow up in their journals. You could even go on a virtual field trip. Do some research and find a cool video on YouTube so your child can see careers in the real world. Crippen (2021), “children’s literature provides students with the opportunity to respond to literature and develop their own opinions about the topic. This strengthens the cognitive developmental domain as it encourages deeper thought about literature. Quality literature does not tell the reader everything he/she needs to know; it allows for some difference in opinion.” (The Value of Children’s Literature). If your child isn’t into reading allow them to pick books that interest them, make it routine, lead by example, read with each other, and make sure books aren’t too easy or too hard. I encourage you to get books on their level as children have better reading with books they can read and comprehend.

 

Have fun Reading,

Ms. Price

Books you’ll enjoy…

Where the Wild Things Are

I Want My Hat Back

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs

A Bad Case of Stripes

My Father's Dragon

Crippen, M. (2021).  Luther College . https://www.luther.edu/oneota-reading-journal/archive/2012/the-value-of-childrens-literature/#:~:text=Children's%20literature%20is%20important%20because,and%20development%20of%20the%20student's