The Redwall Series

Has anyone else heard of the Redwall series by Brian Jacques? I enjoy the series. I have noticed that every book in the series I have read so far has at least two plotlines going on at once. I personally don’t have too much trouble following the multiple plotlines, but I can see that it might be confusing to other people. Often, a bunch of characters will go on a quest of some sort, while the others stay back at Redwall and something happens there. It alternates between the story of the characters who are away and the story of the characters who are at home. Then, in the resolution of the book, the plotlines meet up again when the questers return home.

cats

Have any of you ever heard of the warrior cats books? They are my favorite books.

Life of Pi!

So, was Pi hallucinating? Or was Richard Parker real? Was there really a nasty cook? OOOHHH!!!!!

I have started reading a book called "this lullaby" by Sarah Dessen. This book is about a girl named Remy who has well had a boyfriend. He broke up with her and she was full out crying. Remy's mother is working on boyfriend number 5. This one is an actual marriage. There was a wedding reception that Remy had to go to against her will. She went outside to get some fresh air and saw someone she thought she liked. She was about to come show herself to him and then another girl that Remy hates butted in. That was her problem.

Response to Literature-The Bronze Bow

Daniel ran away from the village towards the end of Chapter Four, because no one there cared about fighting for freedom. He didn’t want to be stuck in the village taking care of his grandmother and sister, because this could hold him back from accomplishing his goal of defeating the Romans. He hoped that one day he could give them a better life after he defeated the Romans. He wanted to make it up to them for running away. The mountain was his home, which is why he felt homesick by the end of Chapter Three. Running away from problems does not solve them, because they eventually catch up with you. However, Daniel did plan on returning, not soon, but one day, and making it up to them, redeeming his actions somewhat.

Game at school

Would somebody tell me about the game that the twins were talking about? I am confused.

Visualization

What have you visualized lately in the book you are reading?

The Ideal Text

What are the features of the ideal text, how do we achieve a text (serious high school level text) that is fun, and engaging, AND educational?

This thread was started in a different topic, relevant posts were copied here...

We started with reading strategies, drifted into purposes for reading, morphed into purposes for writing and finally writing style for purpose!

From Orion: I think that the only difference is in the format of the information. The reason that a text book is written is to educate, whereas the purpose of a storybook is to entertain. Hence, the differing styles. If, for example, a math text were written in a story style, it would be more conducive to "inactive" reading. The dry format makes it difficult to read for fun, making need for more than just what one was doing for distraction. However, if a story were written in a dry textbook style it would be vary ineffective as a distraction. This would be because the format and style could detract from the plot and the characters. I think that a history textbook, written as a story would be ideal, of course the course would also have to include a text book for a fuller knowledge. I know that this was a little of topic, however I think that it is important to think about what the book is designed for, not just how one reads it.

From Amanda: Of course, now we have to ask, "is it possible to write a math or science text book that is fun and engaging and all those other things?" I think the name hiSTORY certainly takes it in that direction all ready. The Oak Meadow Ancient Civs book combines the two well, (for the level it's written at), and we have a couple of others that work that way. Could you write a Biology text that would read more story like?

From Alex: I think that one could write certain aspects of a biology book in an engaging story manner, but other parts would be neigh on imposable to convey in that manner. Has anyone watched "What the Bleep do we Know"? This movie tries to do something like that. I think that to be able to truly connect which a story there must be characters for us to empathize with and know, even if these characters are not human they are anthropomorphized and caused to be human with human feelings that we can empathize with, thereby allowing us to connect with them. I think this would be difficult to do in a biology or math textbook. How would it be done?

From Amanda: So, now I'm picturing little math symbols chatting with each other about what happens when they are mixed up with numbers and other symbols. It's starting to look like a soap opera in my head... EEK!!!!!

From Orion: If a text (say Chemistry for example) was written in a style conducive to Evaluation and Connection (again examples), would this make it also easer to do all the other "active" things too? It would certainly be much more fun to read.

I think that the fun of all studying is connecting it all together, like a puzzle. So if a, perhaps, series of text of, say, all the core classes were built to take information from one another, this would necessitate reading "actively" to some extent, and would not stumble upon the problem of forced anthropomorphism. I think that this would be a way to write a text in an engaging manner. The connection between the topics more than in the the reader and the character would be the intriguing part. This interconnection of the information may not be interesting to others, but I think that this would be great. Also this is not strictly the form of connection that is used in "active" reading, but I thought that this was pertinent none the less. This has already been done to some extent with the Oak Meadow books and other books I have not used, if others know about some such books I would enjoy reading them at some point.

The buzz word "Active" Reading, what does it mean to you?

So today in class we were talking about being Active Readers, though one student doesn't like the term.

When you are reading for a purpose other than pleasure, what types of thoughts go through your head???

The book, Mini-Lessons for Literature Circles, says smart readers do the following things:

• Visualize
• Connect
• Question
• Infer
• Evaluate
• Analyze
• Recall,
• and Self-Monitor, though I think Adjust is a better word.

What do these strategies mean to you? do you use them? when? What would you call this practice?

Little red sheepie says.....

Hell0! I'm reading the Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald. The preface was waaayyy to long. I'm only a couple of pages into the story itself. I guess the preface was good. It would be a whole lot better if it wasn't there though.

ATA Library

Wanted to share with everyone the on-line location of our Library database. We only have 160+ of our maybe 3500 books in so far, but we will keep plugging away at it. Here is the address if you want to put a link in, or favorite, or bookmark, or whatever it is that you all like to do... http://books.google.com/books?as_list=BDSR6BaYQpPSVsOrv2dwaGhRmKST_LK1DQBe-qj1EIhAqO3a2Kg&hl=en

Anyone gets bored (or needs community service hours for school) can feel free to add books in. Just drop by and one of us can show you how.

Cheers!

What are you reading?

Hi everyone~

I'm interested to know what you are reading... what the book is about, who is important in the book, why you are reading it, etc.

I'm in between books right now, I was at BN last night and bought 8 more fantasy and another ?murder mystery? I know there is now a genre for using techical science to solve crimes, but can't think of it.

Anyway, I want to take up something different, but don't know what direction to go.

Help!