Three-year-old Reader's Theater

I came across this video a few weeks ago. I think it relates to the idea of helping children make meaning with literature. In it, you will see a three-year-old boy using a type of reader's theater to understand and remember a short poem. I remember doing this as a child - using gestures and emphasis on specific words to remember the text of a poem or song. (I even remember doing the reverse as a five- and six-year-old in the children's dance classes I took, where we would use words and chants to help us remember the dance steps we had learned.) I think that doing this type of reader's theater really helps some children make meaning from text and connects to what I ask adolescents and adults to do, which is to imagine images in their minds while reading or listening to someone read a piece of literature. I decided to post it here to share it for when we work on reader's theater later in the course.

The poem:
The Eagle, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls."

An Introduction

Here it is. My first “college” blog entry… Yes, a blog focused on my graduate courses and the literature I am reading for these courses. For some reason, this makes me think no one will want to read what I write… Honestly, when I think of blogs focused on academia, I imagine wordy tirades in which the blogger rants about an academic philosophy that no one cares to read about. I know I am interested in what I am reading and studying; otherwise I would not be reading and studying the topics and books that I am, but will anyone else care? I hope at least my fellow classmates will care to read this. :)

I do have some experience with blogs, though not through a particular class in connection to a university. I have written creative blog posts in which I have shared stories, poems, thoughts, and ideas with family and friends; however, I have not written a blog entry in over a year. My first year of teaching, which was last year, practically took over my entire life and I neglected to do many things that I used to, such as blogging.

I used to follow blogs that are written by some of my favorite writers. I used to really like Neil Gaiman’s blog at neilgaiman.com. (He is a fantasy writer.) He uses it more as an online promotional tool now rather than a place to share his thoughts, and it is mostly about his work and events. I don’t find it particularly interesting anymore. Reading only about upcoming book releases and event after event does not make for a particularly memorable afternoon.

I occasionally check in and read some of my friends’ blogs. Clara, one of my friends from UNM, writes a really funny, interesting blog about her life. (http://ineedclarafication.blogspot.com/) I find Clara’s blog interesting because she uses a lot of humor and she includes silly drawings about her thoughts and experiences. Her writing is thoughtful, humorous, and interesting.

As I’m creating this blog for my class, I have started to think about some questions that I would like to explore in addition to posting about literature and research. Looking through other blogs has made me wonder: How can I show an audience the book I am reading, rather than just “tell” things about it? I want to make my blog more dynamic than a blog that is strictly text-based, so I will need to think about how I can accomplish this. I hope that I can ultimately create an appealing page that shares interesting material with my readers.

Thanks for reading this.

Pam