Annotated Bibliography Prospectus

I have chosen these trade books for a 11th grade English Class. The unit's theme is magic realism found in contemporary literature. Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys is a 2006 YALSA ALEX award winning novel. The collection of magical-realist comics by Gilbert Hernandez, Heartbreak Soup: Love and Rockets, is a cult classic that follows the inhabitants of a fictional, Mexican town. Bowers' Magic(al) Realism is a text to help the students understand the history and elements of magic realism. Through this variety of texts, students will be able to identify magical realism in literature, as well as film & media.

Gaiman, N. (2006). Anansi Boys. New York: Harper Collins

Bowers, M.A. (2004). Magic(al) Realism (The New Critical Idiom). New York: Routledge

Hernandez, G. (2007). Heartbreak Soup: Love and Rockets. Seattle: Fantagraphic Books

Blog #1: Two websites for student use (English)

This site is a great way for students to use photographs in their creative writing. Using the public domain stock of photographs available on flickr.com, students are able to create comic strips with a series of photos and text bubbles. For example, if a student wanted to make a comic strip about dinosaurs, they would have to search 'dinosaur' in the upper left corner and then click and drag a result they like into the center of the page. It's an innovative way for students to integrate someone else's pictures and their own words to make a story. I would use this in the classroom as an independent brainstorming technique for creative writing projects; using pictures is an effective, visual way to storyboard the sequence of a short story. Before letting the students use the application on their own, I would have the class help me create a story using pictures on a whiteboard.

This site is perfect for building vocabulary and philanthropy at the same time! As a class, playing Free Rice is always fun and enriching. Using the whiteboard again, students could work in groups and have buzzers; when they know the definition of a word, they could buzz in and earn points toward class participation. Independently, students could play free rice during class and write down any words they had a hard time defining. As Gunning suggests, the students could use those words in a skit to help apply those words in a personal context. The great thing about Free Rice is that when you define a word incorrectly, they ask you to define the word again later on to help reinforce the meaning.