tweenteacher.com

Kids killin’ kids for TV viewing pleasure? Great tween reading fun!

I just finished The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins . It took me awhile to get a hold of it because the minute I brought it into my classroom library, there was a line a bazillion students long ahead of me. I had to pull strings and use my clout as the teacher in order to bully my way to the front of the line. (more…)

So I just finished reading Neal Shusterman’s The Schwa Was Here.  I know, I know.  For all you librarians out there, you’re probably saying: “What?  It took you THIS long to read it?  Jeesh, what kind of tweenteacher are you?”  Well, somehow I missed it when it first hit the scene.

(more…)

You know when you enjoy a book so much you begin to slow down towards the end just to make the sweetness last?  Well, Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book is one of those.  NG writes with a rhythm in his words that seduces you.  Coupled with an amazingly simple and brilliant plot, his latest foray into young adult horror will leave you holding your breath through the entire story until that final page allows for your exhale.  

(more…)

Dear Fellow Edubloggers,

Many of you have been blogging far longer than I have.  I have many of you on my Google Reader and I admire your wit, your writing, and would now love your advice.

Last week, I posted a review of the Stephanie Meyer Twilight series.  If you’ve read the review, you’ll see I was (to say the least) not a fan.  The point of my post was to encourage parents and teachers to read what the kids are reading so that they can be a part of their dialogue.  And, while I clearly didn’t like the book, I really like talking to people about all the new tween and teen literature out there and their opinions of them.  (Hence, the crowds of kids in my room at lunch, each there to check out new books in my awesome classroom library, or just simply there to hang out and talk lit.) 

Anyway, my posted review clearly hit a cord.  Generally I try to respond to everyone who comments on my website (pretty easy when you could count your daily hits on one hand), but the response to this review has been a little intimidating and, frankly, freaky.  

(more…)

Look, I’m a big believer in reading what the kids are reading, so I picked up the first in this crapfest of a series.  I was a big Anne Rice fan during my middle school years, so clearly I’m not against trashy, vampire romances.  For some reason, vampires are sexy.  But Stephanie Meyer makes Anne Rice look like Shakespeare.   I committed to reading the series so that I could then intelligently discuss with my students what my problems were with the books.

So for those teachers who want the Cliff Notes version of this series, here it is so you don’t have to go through the torture that I did.  Not important, you say?  Well this series, supported in large part by tween girls, has outsold J.K. Rowling’s little juggernaut, proving the age-old adage that vampires and virgins do sell after all.

Wake up teachers and parents, these characters and their unemotional, dysfunctional relationships have been adopted as role models for our tweens.  But don’t take the book out of their hands.  Read it yourself, be a part of the discussion, and cast yourself as a voice in their head when they are thinking about things in the quiet of their alone time.

Although in this case, the Cliff Notes version should do:

Book one, Twilight: outsider girl falls in love with cold, unemotional, tortured, vegetarian vamp who won’t tell her the truth about anything, including his feelings towards her.  Think Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites but with a great car and without the tobacco problem. Girl decides that she’s plain and vamps are beautiful and she wants to be one.  Her father (with the depth of Homer Simpson), meanwhile, is totally unattached to reality, doesn’t notice there’s a vampire sleeping in her room each night.  She almost dies.

(more…)

Kelly Gallagher, educator and author of Teaching Adolescent Writers, came and spoke to the UCI Writing Project on Friday and his focus of the presentation was a Golden Line: The Goal in Education is “Everybody Improves.”  

Duh, you say, isn’t improvement always the goal of education?  Actually, no. When you consider AYP scores, for instance, the goal is to hit a benchmark, not the level of improvement you made to hit it.  

(more…)

You know, sometimes I wonder if I’m not a huge pain in the ass to present for, especially if I love what’s going on.  I’m one of those audience members who has to verbally digest and implement what I am learning as it’s happening.  I have to barble and pop as my Eureka moments are going on, and while it’s amazingly exciting for me, it must be hugely annoying to my presenter.  I was in rare form this morning at the UCI Writers Project, for Doug Fisher, co-author of such works as Language Learners in the English Classroom, was in the house. (more…)

I went into Frank Beddor’s The Looking Glass Wars with some trepidation.  I’ve never been one for the Alice in Wonderland universe.  I find playing cards quite personality-less and grinning cats are somewhat less than charming.  But it’s more then that.  Even as a child, I could not enjoy books with children in peril, no adult protection, and lost in realms where there were no rules outlining how they could survive themselves. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is another book that freaked me out.  When I initially read Holes, that too was lost on me (I’ve since come around to the glory of that one, however). (more…)

I loved Derek Landy’s Skulduggery Pleasant.  Let me say it again: I loved this book.  It’s edgy, dark, and hilarious.  I haven’t read a vivid character like this is a long time.  Skulduggery is in one breath a rapscallion, a role-model, and a rogue. Picture Errol Flynn sans skin.

(more…)