# data[].attributes.body
One of the books for my Lit Circle unit was March. We also read Luna, In the Country We Love and I am Malala. Attached is a slideshow of the projects done in my March groups (there were two). The instructions for the project are included in the document. When I get a chance I will also upload the Luna projects.

# data[].attributes.headline
Informal Textual Response - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

# data[].attributes.subject
Informal Textual Response - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

# data[].attributes.body
Write a summary of the text and then provide your opinion.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon is about a teenage boy, Christopher Boone. While not directly acknowledged in the text, Christopher seems to be on the autism spectrum and struggles with social norms and understanding human emotions, including his own. He also loves animals, so when Christopher finds his neighbor’s dog, dead, in front of their house, he decides to investigate the murder and write a book about it. His neighbor, Mrs. Shears, finds him investigating the dead dog and calls the police on him, which results in him going to jail for a few hours.

Once released from jail, Christopher’s dad makes him promise not to investigate the murder of Mrs. Shears’ dog. However, Christopher continues interviewing people in the neighborhood about the incident. His father finds out what he is doing and instructs him to stop, but Christopher continues anyway. Eventually, Christopher’s father finds Christopher’s book about the murder and takes the book away from him. Although Christopher’s father was very upset about Christopher disobeying him, Christopher looks for the hidden book anyway.

When Christopher finds the book, he also finds a stack of letters addressed to him, from his mother. This comes as a surprise to Christopher because he had thought his mother was dead, but she was actually living in London. Once his father admits and apologizes for lying to Christopher, he also admits to killing Mrs. Shears’ dog. He did this because he had unrequited feelings for Mrs. Shear and was upset that she didn’t love him back.

Christopher is so upset by his father’s confession that he decides to go live with his mom in London. When he arrives, Christopher learns that his mother is living with Mr. Shears and explains to her that his father told him that she was dead. His father comes looking for him, but he stays with his mother for another week and eventually returns home with her in order to take an exam that will help him get into college. He anxiously takes the exam and meanwhile, his father tries to get Christopher to forgive him by buying him a puppy. In the end, he receives his exam results and learns that he scored the highest points possible.

I enjoyed reading this book because it gives the reader an opportunity to look into the mind of someone who has autism. Because Haddon writes this book in first person, we are given a step by step guide to everything going on inside Christopher’s mind and body when he experiences something. Instead of feeling and expressing a direct emotion, he often explains what is happening in his body, physically. We often say that people with autism have trouble understanding human emotion, but it is rarely acknowledged that maybe people without autism have trouble understanding the physical process of their own bodies. Christopher is able to do this well. Sometimes, when he explains his physical reactions, even without him expressing it, I can infer that he is experiencing anxiety. Many people are unable to acknowledge and understand the physical feelings of anxiety the way Christopher does. I found this to be very eye opening.

# data[].attributes.body
Discuss how you would use this text in your own classroom

In my 9th grade ELA ICT class, we are extending our work on the importance of protest against power by incorporating lit circles into our unit. So far we have read Elie Wiesel’s nobel peace prize speech, “Hope, Despair & Memory”, MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail and “Antigone”. Luna is one of the four texts that we are using for our lit circles. We chose this text as a lower lexile level (500) for differentiation purposes. The other texts that we have chosen for our lit circles are “I Am Malala” by Christina Lamb and Malala Yousafzai, “March” by Andrew Aydin, John Lewis, and John Noel Claude Lewis and “In The Country We Love” by Diane Guerrero.

The reason why Luna fits into the theme of protest against power is because she is protesting against her dad, family, society to be who she really is. In the world we live in people that are transgender are assaulted and killed more often than anyone else in our society and it largely goes under the radar. Therefore, just to be out as a trans person is an act of protest.

In our lit circles, students will be grouped based on reading level, with some flexibility based on interest, which we will determine from a survey. Each group will have guiding questions that they will work on together and a final group project. This will be a change of pace since the groups that they were in prior to lit circles were heterogeneous as a strategy to promote reading comprehension among the lower level readers.

# data[].attributes.headline
Informal Textual Response - Running With Scissors

# data[].attributes.subject
Informal Textual Response - Running With Scissors

# data[].attributes.body
Letter from Deirdre to Augusten

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
informal response - running with scissors

# data[].attributes.body
A major takeaway from Takacs’s article is the idea of teaching from the perspective that everyone is an expert of their own experience, which is a common focus within Social Work frameworks that I am familiar with. What I appreciated from this article the most was that not only did it address the need to “teach how to listen” and to  “help foster habits of introspection, analysis, and open, joyous communication”, the article also gives real life examples of how to put these theories into practice. I have read so much theory on empowerment within education and the world of social justice, but very often the text falls short by omitting any real life examples. Takacs’s explanation of cooperative argumentation and walking us through the real life examples of students working through a “cycle of praxis” helped me a great deal to visualize how to put this theory into practice. Unfortunately, this is not common practice among those who write about theory.

# data[].attributes.headline
Informal Textual Response - The Glass Castle

# data[].attributes.subject
Informal Textual Response - The Glass Castle

# data[].attributes.body
Diary Entry - Rex Walls

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Glass Castle Informal Textual Response - Lauren Kurtz

# data[].attributes.body
Characters - Prompt 9