Day 13

Today was an interesting day.  I got a call this morning asking if I would substitute the "Theater Tots" class this afternoon.  I agreed, assuming I could just use the lesson plan I had written for my drama class tomorrow.  I guess I forgot to factor in that the kids were going to be 4-5 years old instead of 8-9.  So...I pretty much just winged the whole thing.  Luckily they didn't see through me .  I have a feeling the lesson plan will go a lot better with the older kids.  :)

Day 13: A fictional book

I guess this means one that I like?  Well, I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan, that goes without being said.  I always find it interesting when parents won't let their kids read Harry Potter because of the magic and "darkness".  I admit it is pretty dark at some points but the whole plot of HP is the battle between good and evil.  There is a strong theme throughout the series of good triumphing over evil which I think is wonderful.  I think it is a great book for children to read and if it gets them interested in reading books then it can't be all that bad right?

Anyway, last week in my Literature class we talked about censorship which was interesting to me.  The final thought my teacher left us with is that she believes that censorship boils down to parents' ability to choose.  She said "Parents have the right to choose what their children read.  They do not have the right to choose what other people's children read".  I thought that was interesting.  We had talked about how they are trying to get the "n word" taken out of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.  I personally think that is ridiculous.  it is amazing to me that you can listen to stand up comics like Chris Rock who use that word in every sentence and no one bats their eye...and yet they are trying to take it out of a classic novel?  They are talking about replacing the word with "slave" but to me that takes away the meaning of the word.  They are talking about African American people who were freed slaves and yet the white people still labeled them with that horribly derogatory term.  I think it is important for students to read those books to help them understand how hard it was for these people, even after they were freed from slavery.

Anyway...what was I talking about?  Oh yeah..fictional books.  Another book I kind of want to read is "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief" (I'm a nerd)  John and I got it for Ben for Christmas because we liked the movie so much.  I am waiting for him to finish it so I can read it :) I'll let you all know how it turns out.