WELCOME Storied Readers to our Fall 2008 Children's Literature class. Stories are what propels us in being human! As Bruce Perry reminds us, "We are storytelling primates." Stories are what we do best. So during this course we will be exploring genres of stories, telling stories, enjoying others' stories, reading stories, sharing stories, discussing stories, engaging others in stories that will culminate in our story which will be memorable after our course is completed. You will carry these stories with you to share with others and to add to. The best teachers are good storytellers. So our journey begins!
We will have an opportunity to collaborate with students and teachers from Tibbetts Middle School this semester as we learn about engaging in talking about stories, assessing and redirecting in authentic experiences. We will become familiar with America's Choice Reading Program and teach within its context.
Please see this time as an opportunity to marinate (Harvey Daniels' epression) in stories you have been wanting to read, never would have read, you don't know about yet, that have yet to find you. Do not read because you HAVE to but because you WANT to, familiarizing yourself with children's authors and stories so you may be the spark-the catalyst- for children's storied development. Your stories will become new friends for you to share with the children you teach.
Children's author Katherine Patterson said:
“The wonderful thing about books is that they allow us to enter imaginatively into someone else's life. And when we do that, we learn to sympathize with other people. But the real surprise is that we also learn truths about ourselves, about our own lives that somehow we hadn't been able to see before.”
(Katherine Patterson Quotes at http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_wonderful_thing_about_books_is_that_they/345500.html)
As a class family we will engage in a playful LATENESS POLICY as follows: If more than 10 minutes late to class, you (including instructor) will tell a story. The only stipulation is that it can be anything but the TRUTH. So fabrications, exaggerations, elaborations are expected and appreciated.
Again, welcome to our playful learning and storied environment!
Your host who welcomes all characters.................. Frances
