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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

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This week I read, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.  My co-worker suggested this book off of our options and gave me a snapshot of what it was about.  She said it was about an autistic boy who is struggling to deal with his parents divorce.  When I started reading I thought my co-worker must of been talking about a different story because Christopher mentions many many times that his mom has passed away.  Christopher also never identified himself as having autism but rather was a mathematician with behavior difficulties so it left his disorder up to the reader.

I got to the middle of the book where Christopher finds the letters from his mom and the chapter where he gets sick in his father’s bed and can’t move or speak is heartbreaking.  Christopher’s whole world is a lie, his mother is still alive and is trying to reach him.  This chapter becomes even worse for Christopher when his dad tells him he is in fact the one who killed Wellington.

When reading this book I wondered why Christopher’s dad didn’t tell him about his mom’s affair.  Christopher had a good understanding of divorce and what it meant to have an affair.  He said a couple of times in the book it meant “doing the sex with someone else”.  So I question why Christopher’s father felt he couldn’t handle it.  Of course, for any child to hear that your mother cheated and left is heartbreaking but wouldn’t it have been better than lying.

When reader other parts of the book I questioned if other characters were aware of Christopher’s differences.  When he interacted with both police officers, I could not tell if the police officer knew why Christopher was reacting the way he was (yelling or hitting) or thought Christopher was just being defiant.  I think as a society we need to be more educated in recognizing the difference.

I read the article, “Rethinking Schools”, and immediately thought about my own education.  The article says, “Although an estimated 20 percent of people in the U.S. have one or more type of disability, there are disproportionately few children's picture books about people with, or addressing the issue of disability.”  I think this is completely accurate - I never even thought about this fact until reading this.  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is probably the first book (besides Of Mice and Men) that I read that addresses the issue of disabilities.  I think school districts need to start incorporating more books/short stories/articles that help address this issue.  There is a huge percentage of students that have one or more type of disability, especially in NYC public schools and if teachers could address this issue maybe our students wouldn’t feel so ashamed and embarrassed about them.  It would also be nice to have some type of parent out-reach with this topic because parents also have negative feelings towards their child being labeled as learning disabled and will withdraw all services which only hurts the student.

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Think, Puzzle, ExploreIn the Visible Thinking Routine, Think, Puzzle, Explore, there are three parts.  Student start by be given time to think about the topic at hand.  Think, Puzzle, Explore is used to introduce a new topic to students and it helps them connect their prior knowledge of a topic to the new one at hand.  The purpose of Think, Puzzle, Explore is for students to generate their own questions when investigating a new topic.  When starting this routine, student think about what they already know about the topic and share with the class (if done as whole group).  Students then brainstorm what questions or puzzles they have about the topic.  After the first two parts of this routine, students explore/investigate this topic.  This routine can be done as a whole class or as small groups.  As a whole class the teacher should track students thinking by making a list of students thoughts and continue this process for each part of the routine.  If this activity is done in small groups, students can write thoughts and puzzles on post-its and add it to the whiteboard.  The teacher can track how students are doing by reading the post-its.  Notice, Solve, Share - Adapted from Think, Puzzle, ExploreStrategy: A way to adapt Think, Puzzle, Explore into a math classroom iis by doing Notice, Solve, Share.  Think routine is always done as whole group.  Students are shown part of a problem for 3-5 seconds and are asked, “what do you notice?” or “what is mathematically important?”  Teacher tracks what students say and writes them on the whiteboard.  Students are then shown the entire problem and are asked to solve, students are encouraged to try and find multiple solutions to the problem.  Students are given 1-2 minutes to work independently then for 3-5 minutes share their solutions with their table.  Once students have shared with their table, the teacher goes over solutions on the board asking one student to share and another student to revoice.  Teacher annotates problem on board with the solution the students shared.  To finish out this routine, students first complete a reflection and then teacher directs students back to their “noticing”.  Teacher asks students what of their noticings were helpful to solving the problem.  Rationale: The purpose of this lesson is (1) for students to think about what parts of the problem are going to be helpful when solving.  Students should always be going into a problem thinking what is important and what do I need to notice about this to solve.  Another reason to do these problems is (2) for students to practice finding different strategies to find the same solution.  Students should be trying to find multiple ways of answering the same question.

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Think, Puzzle, ExploreIn the Visible Thinking Routine, Think, Puzzle, Explore, there are three parts.  Student start by be given time to think about the topic at hand.  Think, Puzzle, Explore is used to introduce a new topic to students and it helps them connect their prior knowledge of a topic to the new one at hand.  The purpose of Think, Puzzle, Explore is for students to generate their own questions when investigating a new topic.  When starting this routine, student think about what they already know about the topic and share with the class (if done as whole group).  Students then brainstorm what questions or puzzles they have about the topic.  After the first two parts of this routine, students explore/investigate this topic.  This routine can be done as a whole class or as small groups.  As a whole class the teacher should track students thinking by making a list of students thoughts and continue this process for each part of the routine.  If this activity is done in small groups, students can write thoughts and puzzles on post-its and add it to the whiteboard.  The teacher can track how students are doing by reading the post-its.  Notice, Solve, Share - Adapted from Think, Puzzle, ExploreStrategy: A way to adapt Think, Puzzle, Explore into a math classroom iis by doing Notice, Solve, Share.  Think routine is always done as whole group.  Students are shown part of a problem for 3-5 seconds and are asked, “what do you notice?” or “what is mathematically important?”  Teacher tracks what students say and writes them on the whiteboard.  Students are then shown the entire problem and are asked to solve, students are encouraged to try and find multiple solutions to the problem.  Students are given 1-2 minutes to work independently then for 3-5 minutes share their solutions with their table.  Once students have shared with their table, the teacher goes over solutions on the board asking one student to share and another student to revoice.  Teacher annotates problem on board with the solution the students shared.  To finish out this routine, students first complete a reflection and then teacher directs students back to their “noticing”.  Teacher asks students what of their noticings were helpful to solving the problem.  Rationale: The purpose of this lesson is (1) for students to think about what parts of the problem are going to be helpful when solving.  Students should always be going into a problem thinking what is important and what do I need to notice about this to solve.  Another reason to do these problems is (2) for students to practice finding different strategies to find the same solution.  Students should be trying to find multiple ways of answering the same question.

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Down These Mean Streets follows a young man through his journey in life.  It starts with the main character, Piri Thomas, as he’s trying to run away from home.  Thomas is trying to get his father attention and teach him a lesson, his attempt fails because when Piri returns home his father didn’t even realize he was gone.  In other instances, Piri does get his dad’s attention for both good and bad reasons.  The book continues to follow Piri through his life, his family eventually moves out to suburbs because his dads get a job but Piri eventually finds himself back on the streets of NYC.  Piri deals with discrimination, drug use, and gang fights throughout the book.

A specific part of the book that stood out to me was right after Piri’s mother died and he found out about his father having another woman.  Piri and his father got into it about a photograph that Piri had torn up but what sticks out the most to be is how the next day Piri purposely spoke poorly so “get back at his father”.  This is very similar to the beginning of the book when Piri tried to run away-this time the fight between him and his father was so bad that his father kicked him out.

Overall I enjoyed the book and reading about Piri’s journey and his struggles.  I think Piri mainly struggled with finding his identify and who he was. The author mentioned that Piri’s skin was darker than his siblings and even though he was Puerto Rican he was often indented as African American.  This also relates to his on again off again relationship with his father.

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Book Summary:

A Step from Heaven by Michael L Printz was about a family that moves from Korea to California in hopes of having a better life.  The book is told through the eyes of Young Ju, the daughter of Apa and Uhmma. The book follows Young Ju’s tough journey through life while she is trying to acclimate to American society while also holding on to some of her Korean culture and also facing the difficult standards of being a woman.

The book begins when Young Ju first starts school in second grade and follows her life until she graduates high school.  Young Ju’s life quickly changes again when her mom has a baby boy, Joon.  Her father, Apa, holds all of his dreams and aspiration in Joon, saying he can be anything in the world: the president, a lawyer, or a doctor.  Young Ju feels jealous and doesn’t understand why she can’t be all those things, but her father remains focusing his attention on Joon and teaching him to “be a man.”  The theme of “being a man” is seen throughout the book, Apa does not want Joon to grow up to be weak or cry, at times he would even hit his son to get that message across.  The book continues in this fashion until a turn of events when Apa finds out his mother has passed away and he can’t return to Korea for the funeral due to lack of money.  After the death of his mother Apa’s behavior drastically changes, he begins drinking more, missing work, and being disrespectful to his wife and children.  Apa’s drinking get so out of control he eventually gets in trouble with the law and loses his license, he stops caring about things that he once did such as Young Ju having the highest grades in her class.  Eventually he starts hitting Young Ju and Uhmma so badly that Young Ju must call the police because she is afraid Apa will kill her mother if no one stops him.  At first Uhmma is very upset with Young Ju because she blames her for him being taken away but eventually thanks Young Ju and is happy Apa is gone.  In the final pages of the book Uhmma must make a decision whether to go back to Korea with Apa or stay in California, ultimately she chooses to stay in California and her, Young Ju, and Joon finally move into their own home.

When I first started reading this book I was not very interested or engaged in it, but over time I became more invested.  I was interested and curious to see how Apa would treat his family in the face of devastation and if he would let that define him, which ultimately I think he did.  I think the author stuck to the status quo when dealing with power in this book.  This family, new to American, has little power or wealth and that continues throughout the entire book.  We see them struggle and working multiple jobs just to keep afloat.  Young Ju is even too embarrassed to tell her best friend where she lives.  We can also see power in the family dynamic and how Apa has control and power and demonstrates it by being physical.  Both parents also believe Joon is the future for their family because he is male which is giving him power.  Overall, I think this book sticks to what is assumed when a family moves to America when it comes to power and wealth.

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In the article, "Disrupting and Dismantling the Dominant Vision of Youth Color, it states four traditions for being an adolescent: (1)Adolescents sever ties with adults, (2) peer groups become increasingly influential social network, (3) resistance is a sign of normalcy for the adolescent, (4) romance and sexual drive governs interests and relationship. After reading this part I paused to think about my time as an adolescent and thought all of these things were very true for me or my friends. I fought with my parents, I had one small set of friends that we did everything together, some of my friends were getting involved in many relationships and making risky choices but this was all "normal" behavior. I continued reading and the next paragraph talks about how youth of color do not get to experiences the normalcy of adolescents because when a youth of color is being defiant or resisting he/she is a criminal or a threat/ There is a double standard when is comes to the normalcy of being a teenager depending on your race. When my brothers were younger they did a lot of stupid things: smashed an old trucks windows out and smashes mailboxes, but they were just being adolescents (of course they got in trouble) but I wonder if a youth of color did the same things how would they be punished by the community? It's important that we talk to our adolescents of color and not of color about this issue and let them know we are trying to understand it and help fix it. One way to bring up this issue would be to read a YAL book that addresses this issue and allows adolescents to feel comfortable talking about it.