American Born Chinese

                At first when attempting to read this book I found myself often wandering as I have never attempted a graphic novel and struggled time to time. Having three narratives mixed into one could create a problem for anyone. I found that the individual pages were easy to read but the overall message I lost time to time because of the multiple times having to start and stop when reading it.  I also found myself very curious on how students would react to this story and if they would be able to keep up with it. I believe that many students would enjoy this book because it is so quick to get through, but some people might struggle through the lack of words and not being enticed by the story itself. While even I struggled at points, I know for certain students this would not be a top choice and may lose some of the class.

            When it comes to the story itself, by the title itself we could have guessed a lot of things going on and guessed at what is possibly to come. The fact that the three narratives are mixed in throughout helps with the feelings of how Jin does not fit in with the school he now goes to. He is constantly part of the unpopular crowd and sees himself as not fitting in which may relate with many students at any age. Fitting in may be one of the toughest things for students to do so the fact that this book uses that as a main point would help create some pretty interesting discussions and class opinions.

            My main sticking point with this story was how Jin in the end stuck with his best friend Wei-Chen and how he took Jin back after everything that happened. Best friends always stick together through thick and thin and in the end this is a similar story and is something that everyone should read about many times. The best friend view is also something that can be taught and expanded on that many students could relate within their own lives and use as a stepping stone for friendships. This book has great teaching points, I am just not sure the book would relate to everyone so the teacher would have to work hard to keep everyone happy and excited about this book. 

Romeo and Juliet

            Having read and dissected this a couple of times, I find “Romeo and Juliet” a classic and something that all students should have to read and possibly reread to get a real meaning out of. While looking online I found that this is an early work of Shakespeare’s and that I found pretty astonishing. I feel that for the depth and levels that this play dives into that this would be a masterpiece for most writers or play writes, but this is only the beginning for Shakespeare. Another thing is the timeframe this is written in makes it seem a lot more classy then most things we read and are written now. I understand that this is how English was written and spoken back in the day, but just reading this seems to be like an introduction to what class is.

            The reading of this tragic love story seems to go rather quickly, but I feel like it takes a while to dive into this play and find deeper meaning takes time. While I read this at younger ages, I feel like I did not understand most of the play and just brushed it off not thinking twice about it. I am interested to see how my fellow classmates decide to teach this and see if I can find ways to also use this book in classroom setting.

While reading this I found myself thinking more about Shakespeare’s works as a whole and thinking about if students really care about his work anymore. I know when I went through school that while we did have to read his work that I often times just sped through it, but does anyone really care anymore? I feel like a lot of us miss out on great works like “Romeo and Juliet” because of the language and how long ago it was written. I find myself constantly thinking about how to get kids, especially high school, to care about literature and what it can do for each of them. 

Part-Time Indian

            The first thing that struck me about this book is how close to home it hits for us and yet I had never even heard of the book or author. The fact that this book is under scrutiny as I discovered looking at some of the back story online did not strike me as odd, but I would still use this book within a classroom especially around here as it is so close to home and could relate to many kids throughout these school districts. While there is a lot of death and deep troubling problems within this book, I believe that the pros outweigh the cons and teaching this book has many upsides which we might possibly see throughout the lesson plans.

            When it comes to the story itself I was interested in reading about a Native American child in this situation because of how I have some Indian heritage throughout my family. Within the book I was not expecting all of the tragedies that Arnold was forced to face. All of these instances caught me off guard as I expected from the book something different. While this story takes on serious topics, the comedy gives relief from them and possibly helps with how children would be able to understand this book and possibly take time off from all of the tragedies. I found the story very tough as we learn about Arnold, because he has everything going against him. I did not expect things such as this to hold back Arnold before reading this book. He had everything going against him and that made this a very exciting book to read. The fact that Arnold transferred to a school full of rich white people puzzled me because while he is getting away from the reservation and all of those disadvantages, he seemed to have stepped right into more of those same dilemmas. I find it very noble that Arnold still can relate with his fellow friends from his former school. Arnold still has feelings such as after the basketball game where they defeat his former best friend Rowdy and Arnold weeps after seeing the sadness.

            This book portrays a child and going through unthinkable tragedies. I found myself constantly thinking how someone can keep going after experiencing all of this. I just could not imagine everything happening to me like this and still being able to make it day to day. Everything was set against Arnold within this story and I am not sure I could have made it.

Things Fall Apart

            When reading “Things Fall Apart,” what I struggled with most was the names of the characters and keeping them straight with whom they were connected with and everything they dealt with. Another situation I struggled with was all of the violence, especially the husbands towards their wives because the abuse of women has always been a never. Throughout this book I constantly compared how our cultures differed and the things I could not really compare to. This happens when Okonkwo compound is destroyed to cleanse the village of his sin which I found to be pretty intense. I guess it is hard to understand another person’s culture without actually being able to see it and be taught it. Understand the culture within this book was rather challenging and sometimes I think made it hard to focus.

            Once the white men came into the story and began to build a church and convert people to Christianity, this book felt like so many others where religion and a different way of living are being forced upon cultures that do not want to conform, yet end up changing and having it change them in the end.  The fact that the villagers did not fight for their customs and their way of life is quite hard to believe. I understand that fighting and war is not always a great solution, to protect a way of life and peoples culture it would be worth it to stand up and fight. Once Reverend James Smith became the head of the Christian Church and started being so strict, taking a stand and rebelling immediately at that point probably would have been the best thing to do. The fact that Okonkwo is the one to jump forward and take the head of one of the white men while no one else helps speaks volumes to how people are willing to fight for their culture even though he was not backed up in his efforts.

            I find it rather interesting that Okonkwo is the one to take a stand because of being exiled previously. I believe the fact that he is willing to take a stand and in the end give his life to attempt to save his culture and people is rather heartfelt and warming to know that he still fought for what he has known forever while everyone else stood by and watched their lives be changed forever. This story brought up the whole fight or flight thinking because either you stand up for what you believe or you watch everything change right in front of your eyes.