Dylan Evans Children's Book- Clifford the Big Red Dog.

"Clifford the Big Red Dog", written by Norman Bridwell, is a children's picture book that has transcended generations to become a favourite to many. The book focuses on a young girl and her dog, Clifford. When the young girl adopted Clifford he was only a puppy and was much smaller than many other dogs. For this reason her parents didn't believe Clifford would survive through the winter. However, one night the young girl wished that Clifford would grow big and strong and sure enough over the next few weeks Clifford kept growing, and growing, eventually becoming over 25ft tall.

This book is certainly focused on a younger age group, mainly Year 2/3/4. The book is relatively easy to read, although students may need some assistance depending on their level of competency.

The illustrations in this story are fantastic and certainly gives students a perspective of the size Clifford has grown. For this reason I believe teachers can integrate this book into a mathematics curriculum and focus on measuring and ratio. 

Dylan Evans Adolescent Novel- Specky Magee

Specky Magee, written by Felice Arena and Garry Lyon is by far my favourite book as a child/teenager growing up. Specky Magee follows the story of a young, aspiring football player called Simon "Specky" Magee. Although the book is heavily dominated by football and scenarios relating to it, it also contains serious themes as well. One of these is themes is when Specky finds out that he is adopted and goes on to search for his biological father.

The book is fantastically written and can be easily read by children as young as 10. Although due to the stronger themes involved I would suggest not reading it until 13 or so. Specky Magee is a good way to start introducing student's to bigger novels, particularly boys, as football is usually closer to their interests.

It would be hard to use this book inside the classroom as it won't appeal to everyone, however, it could be used as an option in a book report/presentation activity.

Dylan Evans Children's Book- The Cat in the Hat

The Cat in the Hat is a beloved children's book written by Dr. Seuss over 50 years ago. The story surrounds two children who are stuck at home one miserable day, bored and lonely. This is followed by the Cat in the Hat entering their house through a closet and ensuring a chaotic, but fun day is to be had. Added to the story is a fish who is opposed to all the antics that are being played out in front of him. The fish constantly says "What would you do if your mother asked you?" in reference to the children's mother who would not approve of what is happening.


The book is well known throughout the entire world and is often known by people, even if they have not read it. The book has bright and colourful pictures, as well as relatively easy to read text.

I personally would use this book in a Year 2/3 class as part of a reading group scenario. This is due to having most students be able to read it independently and easily, but still find enjoyment out of it at the same time.

Hayley Wells: Children's Literature - I Want My Potty

I Want My Potty

By Tony Ross

from the book of

The Hutchinson

TREASURY OF CHILDREN'S LITERATURE 

SUMMARY:
Published in 1995, I Want My Potty is a funny narrative about a little princess who grows out of her nappy and loves her new potty. She took her potty everywhere with her until one day she is at the top of the castle without it and cries for her potty. Everyone in the kingdom cries out to get her potty and as it was rushed to her, they were a little too late... 
This is a story which is easy to read to younger students using different tones for each character, as a single character is shown on a different page throughout most of the narrative. Tony Ross was also the illustrator of this cute and humorous story. His choice of colours enhance each character making them stand out from the background. This makes the character the main focus of each page. 


USE IN THE CLASS:
I Want My Potty can be used within a classroom for many activities and the development of English such as:
- Looking at how the author creates the characters by using the illustrations and language in the text
- Engaging in conversations and discussions, using active listening behaviour, showing interest, and contributing ideas, information and questions
- Looking at the different ways to express emotion and comparing to the little Princess. 

LINKS TO ACARA:

The above suggestions are all suitable for a year 1 class in English and if I could choose one to carry out with students I would choose looking at the different ways to express emotion because I believe that students can have a lot of fun with this as it isn't only verbal but involves body language as well. This links with The Australian Curriculum within the strand of Language and sub-strand of Language for Interaction, as ACARA (2012) states, students "Explore different ways of expressing emotions, including verbal, visual, body language and facial expressions."

Week 5 Workshop: Digital Storytelling and Film

The Week 6 workshop was our first introduction to the world of digital storytelling so far in the course. One activity involved in the workshop was watching a video called Lemonade Stand, which was the 2012 Tropfest Short Film Festival winner. Within our groups we then deconstructed the 7-minute story and broke down the various parts, e.g. setting, characters and plot. We also examined the various film techniques used and how lighting, camera angles and sound can add very different effects than those in a written or textual form. This activity was designed to assist with our preparation for Assignment 3.

Another workshop activity we completed was to put a twist on a famous fable or nursery rhyme and bring it to class. We had some very diverse and imaginative ideas within our group. Firstly, Dylan's idea was based on Little Red Riding Hood, however the setting was in Elizabeth. The setting was an important part of his story, as it changed various other aspects of the story. For example, instead of the Wolf, there was a gang member and instead of an axeman was a police officer.

Hayley's idea was a spin on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, entitled Sally Pearson and the Seven Olympians wherein Sally Pearson's goal was to become the fittest in the land.

Daniel's idea was a twist on Goldilocks and the Three Bears entitled Goldilocks and the Three Rats. His story was set in the city, in and around sewers. In his story, eating out of trash cans replaced the bowls of porridge.

Finally, Josh's idea was a parody of the Three Little Pigs. It is set as somewhat of a sequel to the famous nursery rhyme, wherein the wolf is old and forgetful as a grain farmer and Pig 1 and 2 have been kicked out of the brick house by Pig 3 and decide their best chance at a home is to befriend the wolf (who has forgotten who they are), much to the chagrin of Pig 3.

We were then asked to draw the "story shape" of our stories.


This activity was very enjoyable and could certainly be used in a primary/middle school setting.

Week 3

Readings

Winch et al. Chapter 13: The Role of Writing

The chapter highlights include:
A Social View

     Contexts of culture and situation

-    Audience and purpose

-    Multiliteracies

-    What is writing?

-    The power of language

-    The evolution of language

-          - Literacy begins well before a child goes to school. Presents of books and print media are around them inside and outside home. The child should be exposed to a rich diversity of language and a variety of contexts as well as be allowed to use and experiment with language.

-         -  The schools needs to develop and use the language the child brings to the school. As they progress through school, they gain greater control over their writing as they become more aware of their audience and purpose.

-         - Useful aspects for commenting on students writing is looking at grammar, punctuation, spelling etc. 

Gamble and Yates (2008) Narrative: Narration and Structure

Gamble and Yates provides a resourceful reading which gives appropriate back ground knowledge and generally a better understanding of narratives and the way in which they are structured and what they contain. The main points from this reading are as follows: 
A story can be told in many ways and this is where the author can decide whether they want the narrative told in first, third person or even both. 
The point of view affects the way that the reader "experiences the story" which is why it is important who the author chooses as the narrator for the story. 
To make a "scene more immediate" or to make it seem like "a past event continuing into the present" the story will be narrated in a present tense, otherwise it will be in past tense.

-        Plots can be shown through story shapes. They are an easy alternative to planning a narrative's plot in the story and can help plan how many lead ups to the climax the author wants. 

     Author's will experiment with new forms of narration 

Lecture

Lecture overview: Narrative – structure and language

The lecture provides an interesting look at the structure of a narrative as well as the language features. 

Insights to students learning in regards to writing a narrative is made clear at the begging of the lecture by stating that students usually think that 'writing' means writing down 'ideas, insights or visions.' 

The structure is described as having an exposition which is the part that sets the scene and also introduces characters. The complication which is when someones life becomes complicated somehow. The climax, where 'suspense' is at peak height. Resolution, the solution to the complication. Finally, the Coda, 'moral of the story' what is learnt from the experience? 

The language features include:
Adjectives (adjectival phrases) such as the tiny quiet mouse. These are noun groups
Adverbs (adverbial phrases) such as in the daytime, with a shivering body, around the corner. These are circumstances
Verbs (verbal groups) He reached, She yelled, They worried. These are action/saying/mental processes 
Words indicating time (linking sentences together) Before the moon came up. 
Figurative language such as similes and metaphors
Dialogue 
First, third person
Looking at the illustrations, what do they say that the text doesn't?

As examples, the lecture looks at Anthony Brown's Voices in the Park, Crew Gary's The Watertower as well as a brief look at the action and mental processes in a section from one of the famous Harry Potter book by J,K Rowling.  


Workshop

The workshop involved looking back over the Gamble and Yates reading discussing our Story Shapes and how our group members shapes varied. Which one had the most amount of complications leading up to the climax? etc. The seven basic plots was explained in more detail after having looked at this also from the reading. The seven basic plots included:
The Quest
The Tragedy
The Voyage and Return
The Comedy
Overcoming the monster
The Rebirth
The Rags to Riches

Each table was given a story and an activity to go with it. The activity asked to write from the perspective of a certain character in the story and this took time as it required to go back through what was read and figure out the personality of the character in order to make it sound convincing.

Week 2

Readings

Winch et al Chapter 24: The Literature Continuum and Deep Literacy
The reading provides a range of key ideas one of them being that literary texts broaden our ways of thinking, feeling and being in the world.

The chapter looks at:
-Deep Literacy
Winch et al (2010,p.503) says "How wide exposure to literature and its stories, in a variety of multimodal forms and genres can influence thinking, dreams, and behaviour."

- Literature and the power to shape worlds;
How literature was emerged from strong oral traditions and that it’s a major contributing factor not only in constructing the power, but in constructing what were to become stereotypical ideas about the ‘Orient’ and ‘natives’ and about power.

-Ideology 
This is now known as a system of thinking and now has three levels. These are: 
1. The actual message of the text. 
2. The unexamined beliefs implicit in the text. 
3 the beliefs and attitudes and ideas that seep into the text as part of the author’s world. 

-Literature as a Map
"Children's literature is a map of childhood, diverse and subjective." Children need to be 'exposed' to literature not just at their level but beyond it as well and this doesn't just mean have them read it but have the text read to them. 


Lecture 

The within Week Two began with the mention of John Marsden, an Australian author of the famous series novel Tomorrow, When the War Began as well as Home and Away. The literature is discussed in regards to the narrator, the setting and characters such as where and when were they introduced in the story, the lifestyle involved and how the author has structured the narrative.

After assessing both texts briefly, we look at what the books have to say, such as the themes across time and space, what the author wants the reader to think about? And think what would we do if we were put in the same situation? Whether that be the circumstance from Tomorrow, When the War Began or Home and Away. Would we act similar to the characters in the book? Or go about it in a completely different way?

By analysing the two texts, students are able to distinguish how narratives can be structured differently and how the author can send different messages across each story. These messages are important as they can ultimately shape our understanding of the world.

As a final note about the lecture, links were made to the weekly reading which was Chapter 24 in Winch et al. These links included Ideology, Context, Literature as a map and the integration across the curriculum.


Workshop 

Within the Week Two workshop, a discussion was carried out in our groups about what was said in the lecture. Following this, the discussion lead to the talk of narratives. What are they? What are their features? What does a narrative do?

Each group was to create a chart on the responses we gave to the questions regarding the weeks reading. As it turned out, we did have fairly similar answers, some more in depth than others.
My Place by Nadia Wheatley was read aloud to us and then the class was shown a clip on the smart-board regarding the same story. Each group was given two pages from the book and some questions to answer. Such questions included What can we learn about the lives of the family in 1858? and Are there connections with other places?

Hayley Wells: Childrens Literature- The Twelve Dancing Princesses

The Twleve Dancing Princesses 

from the book of

Fairy Tales

By Brothers Grimm

Illustrated by Cathie Shuttleworth 

Retold by Nicola Baxter

SUMMARY:
This engaging book contains many fairy tales that children would find entertaining. The Twelve Dancing Princesses was published in 1997 and retold by Nicola Baxter. It is a different sort of a fairy tale that involves a mystery. The King has no idea what his twelve daughters get up to at night and hires princes to find out the mystery. After the third night, if they have failed, they will be be-headed but if they succeed they shall choose one of the daughters to marry. One by one they fail, until a soldier runs into an old mysterious woman who tells him how to succeed. He tricks the princesses and follows them into a secret room where trees surround them, the princesses meet the princes and they cross the water to the dancing palace. After the third night, the prince approaches the king along with evidence of what he has seen and the Princesses admit to their mischief. He chooses the eldest to marry and her sisters are welcome to dance at the wedding. The illustrator, Cathie Shuttleworth creates images using bold colours that stand out and the reader can imagine being in the setting that's shown. The detail in the characters is quite good but still maintains a cartoon look. 

USE IN CLASS:
The Twelve Dancing Princesses can be used in a year 4 class to see how the students respond to the situation and solution. They can then have a discussion and express their feelings about it. 
- What if this happened? instead of ...
- What did the king think the Princesses were doing?
- Would the soldier still attempt to solve the mystery if the old lady didn't tell him?

LINKS TO ACARA:
The above suggestion of the use of the book within the classroom fits into the English Curriculum as the key idea, "Discuss literary experiences with others, sharing responses and expressing point of view," as stated by ACARA (2012), supports students to discuss their responses to the book. This key idea comes under the strand of Literature and the sub-strand of Responding to Literature. 

Adolescent Novel - The Land of Dragons by Emily Rodda

This book combines several stories from The Land of Dragons and what is to become known as Deltora. Some of the stories have never been told before outside the Deltora quest series and are mostly of ancient legends.

Each chapter provides a succinct message. Chapters one and two set the scene for the entire book. The following chapters jump all over with individual stories which seem to connect to the beginning and finish of the book in one way or another. Many of the chapters are limited to telling specific stories of one person or a family or group of people.

Due to the nature of the book it is often very difficult to follow unless there is full attention paid by the reader. The vocabulary in this book is also very specific to the Deltora quests and the stories within it.

In a classroom this book would highlight the importance of more advanced book layouts. The story has many short chapters but each chapter is clearly identifiable.

Daniel C. Kelly

Hayley Wells: Adolescent Novel - The Cabbage Patch Pong

The Cabbage Patch Pong

By Paul Jennings

SUMMARY:

Like all Paul Jennings's books, they're bizarre and weird but that's why children love them! This particular book which was published in 2002 is spoken in both first and third person. It tells the story of a family of eight who desperately want to keep the two cows, Petal and Rosebud. Their father of course objects to the idea and Chris becomes so upset that he tries to run away with them during the night. His sister (whose name does not occur is the narrator of the story). She chases after him and Petal takes off into the forest. After coming to a clearing they spot a massive cabbage that grows before their eyes. Hidden away, they watch a little green lady and a little green baby come out of the cabbage along with fifty more! Petal, too focused on the cabbage, charged towards it and scared the little green ladies into the forest. Chris and his sister are left there to look after the babies; to feed and stop them crying. They wait patiently until the little green ladies come back and disappear with their babies back into the cabbage. Petal leads Chris and his sister home where their father then agrees to keep the cows. 
The Cabbage Patch Pong was illustrated by Craig Smith, who shows only black and white images on minimal pages that give a sketched impression. Although they are detailed, they only show what the text provides.  

USE IN CLASS
The Cabbage Patch Pong can be used within an English class to look at the type of language that Paul Jennings uses such as:
- Vebal and noun groups
- Slang
- Cultrual language
- What age group would this be suitable for?

LINKS TO ACARA
The following above could be used within a year 6/7 class because within the Language strand and sub-strand Expressing and Developing Ideas, ACARA (2012) states that students, "Understand how modality is achieved through discriminating choices in modal verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns." 

Josh Rouse: Personal Reading. Billy the Punk, by Jessica Carroll and Craig Smith

Summary:

This children's book is a short story about a school boy named Billy. The story begins with Billy seeing a group of punks at his local shopping centre and suddenly decides he wants to be one too. The story continues throughout the week following Billy's epiphany as each day he tries more and more to be a punk, from cutting up his clothes to colouring his hair, all the while getting in trouble with the authority in his life (his teacher and parents, which no doubt fuels his desire to be even more of a punk).

The premise of the story is in many ways showcasing the naivety and easily-influenced nature of young children, which becomes more apparent at the end of the story. The book is fun and light-hearted and has full page pictures which makes it easy to read to a whole class.

Use in a classroom:

Personally, I would use this in a lower primary classroom and use it to simply get the students thinking about what their dreams are and what they'd like to be when they grow up. I would use this to try and draw connections between Billy and themselves so they can feel more involved in the text.

Hayley Wells: Children's Book - Little Cottontail

Little Cottontail

By Carl Membling

SUMMARY:

Little Cottontail like the other Little Golden Books published, is a fantastic read for students. We all know that students want to grow up fast and they don't know how long this will take. Little Cotton Tail goes through the same thing and constantly asks his mother after everything he does if he's now grown up.  Little Cottontail is taught by his mother how to know if a fox is around by getting his scent. One day Little Cottontail ends up catching the scent and warns everyone to get away, the fox chases Little Cottontail but he and his mother get away. His mother finds him shortly afterwards and tells him that he is now all grown up. I believe that the moral of the story is that to be gown up, you must first understand how to look after yourself and watch out for danger.
 Published in the year 1960, Carl Membling's Little Cottontail is full of love and displays 'stranger danger' through the character of a rabbit. The illustrations, by Lilian Obligado match the text with some detailed additions giving the reader something else to look and think about during the read. There are many mutual colours used throughout the book with the exception of the fox which is illustrated as a bright red colour. Very appropriate as well since the fox was the 'bad' character and red usually represents danger. 

USE IN THE CLASS:
I believe that this book can be used in a number of ways:
- Students can discuss a number of issues such as what they think the author was trying to tell the reader? Why do you think Little Cottontail wanted to grow up so fast? Do you want to grow up fast? What do you think being a grown up means?
- Students can re-write the story as to what they think might have also made Little Cottontail a grown up, what else could he have done?

LINKS TO ACARA:
I recommend this book for a year 1 class as students can "Discuss characters and events in a range of literacy texts and share personal responses to these texts, making connections with students own experiences," as said in the sub-strand, Responding to Literature ACARA (2012).