About Wonder

I finished reading Wonder, by RJ Palacio.  The story of Auggie made me cry... and made me cheer! I loved it...one of the parts I loved was the precepts Palacio included in the story...which I want to make into pictures and frame to put up around my classroom.  Here is the list:

Precepts = rules about really important things!

1. "When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind." —Dr. Wayne Dyer
2. "Your deeds are your monuments." —Inscription on ancient Egyptian tomb
3. "Have no friends not equal to yourself." —Confucius
4. "Fortune favors the bold." —Virgil
5. "No man is an island, entire of itself." —John Donne
6. "It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers." —James Thurber
7. "Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much." —Blaise Pascal
8. "What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful." —Sappho
9. "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can." —John Wesley
10. "Just follow the day and reach for the sun." —The Polyphonic Spree
11. "Everyone deserves a standing ovation because we all overcometh the world." —Auggie Pullman

The story made me think a lot about why bullying happens, what we can do to stop it, how we can take a stand.

Here are 5 shocking facts about bullying from the "Do Something" about Bullying Website:

• 56% of students have personally felt some sort of bullying at school. Between 4th and 8th grade in particular, 90% of students are victims of bullying.

• The most common reason cited for being harassed is a student's appearance or body size. 2 out of 5 teens feel that they are bullied because of the way that they look.

• 1 in 4 teachers see nothing wrong with bullying and will only intervene 4% percent of the time.

• A victim of bullying is twice as likely to take his or her own life compared to someone who is not a victim.

• One out of 10 students drop out of school because they are bullied.

I don't want to fill this post with spoilers for those of you who haven't read Wonder, but in case you haven't noticed, bullying is a bigtime problem right now.  So I Wondered what I can do to make a difference...based on the fact that most students are victims of bullying between 4th and 8th grade, I think one of the things I can do is be aware of this "epidemic" and do something about students who experience bullying.  I find it alarming that 1 in 4 teachers see nothing wrong with bullying. 

Where ever I land at the beginning of the school year, I will work hard to make sure that bullying is addressed and minimalized.  I think one of the best ways to do this will be to build community relations within the classroom from the start.  If you have any great books to recommend for helping build community, let me know.  Two of my favorites are How Full is Your Bucket and Enemy Pie.  I have previously used both as Read Alouds to start off the year.  You can hear both read by clicking the links (How Full on Youtube and Enemy Pie on Storyline Online). 

Let's take a stand against bullying...and "choose kind"!

What are you reading Monday

Growing as a writer by wearing different lenses as a reader!

Ok, I have been very behind on my reading in the novel world. With The Hunger Games coming out as a movie (haven't seen it yet), I wanted to investigate what it was all about. I bought it on Thursday, started reading it on Saturday-didn't really want to put it down but had to at times and finished it tonight. I devoured it! I really couldn't get enough of it-keeping me so tensed up, I think my muscles hurt from it. As I was reading last night, I had to stop so I could get some sleep but it had me so wound up that it took a long time to finally nod off...

After spending so much of my time during the past month, observing author's craft, I read this book like I've never read before. I wondered a lot about the words...thought more deeply about how authors have their characters remember, or share memories and would wonder what or why this would be important for the character to share...envisioning this story through different lenses was valuable. It made me realize that I had become a couch potato reader-just sort of lazily meandering through books...I now hunger for a different sort of reading experience as I think more deeply about how authors filter the flow of their works.

I want to thank all of the writers from The Slice of Life Challenge for their posts as well as their comments for helping me to grow my thinking as a writer. I hunger for so much more...leaving the couch potato reading role behind...

Mac and cheese tastes?

Slice 24 of 31

As we celebrate the season of lent, we participate in abstaining from meat on Fridays. Consequently, the Friday evening dinner escapades usually include some kind of fish dish and the staple, macaroni and cheese...

I grew up eating macaroni and cheese once a week (at least). I consider myself a connoisseur of mac and cheese. I know good mac and cheese when I taste it! I also survived on Kraft Mac and Cheese as I scraped to live in college.

Getting to the thick of it...something weird is up with the flavor of the kraft mac! It just tastes funky...at first I thought it was just the variety of what I sometimes feed Nattie. However, I've noticed on a few other occasions that the mac and cheese tasted just as strange no matter where we've ordered it. I wonder if the recipe has changed...hmmmm

Food for thought...