Claim Your Weblink Now!! (or by 1/25/08)/Post Your Review by 2.6.08
You will soon be required to write a 1-page review of a YA weblink of your choice. Here is a list of links I’d like to see reviewed, though I’m open to others.
1. Alan Review: http://www.alan-ya.org/
2. Web English Teacher: http://www.webenglishteacher.com/
3. The Comic Book Project: http://www.comicbookproject.org/
4. New York City Comic Book Museum: http://www.nyccomicbookmuseum.org/education/education.htm
5. Deaf Characters in Ya Lit: http://www.pajka.blogspot.com/
6. ReadWriteThink: http://www.readwritethink.org
7. Grouchy: Favorite Teen Angst books: http://www.grouchy.com/angst/index.html
8. Teen Reads: http://www.teenreads.com
9. YA Authors Café: http://mysite.verizon.net/selimsa803/default.html
10. YALSA: http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/yalsa.cfm
11. Voice of Youth Advocates: http://www.voya.com
12. Comic books for Young Adults: http://ublib.buffalo.edu/lml/comics/pages/index.html
13. Multicultural Review: http://www.mcreview.com
14. School Library Journal: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com
15. Hornbook: http://www.hbook.com/index.shtml
16. Vandergrift’s Page: http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/YoungAdult/
17. The Literary Link: http://theliterarylink.com/
18. Literacy Matters: http://www.literacymatters.org/adlit/intro.htm
19. Miami University’s Picture Book database: http://www.lib.muohio.edu/pictbks/
20. Guys Read: http://www.guysread.com/
21. Book Awards Information: http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/awards.html
22. Reader’s Theatre: http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/RTE.html
23. American Library Association: http://www.ala.org/
24. Folklore and Mythology Texts: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html
By Friday, January 25, please post a reply telling the class which link you will take. There are more links than there are students, so do not double up (if you review a link that someone else has already reviewed, you will not get credit for the assignment).
So, by Friday, simply post something like. "Hi! I'll take #12!"
I'll post the actual due date for the weblink reviews later.
1. Alan Review: http://www.alan-ya.org/
2. Web English Teacher: http://www.webenglishteacher.com/
3. The Comic Book Project: http://www.comicbookproject.org/
4. New York City Comic Book Museum: http://www.nyccomicbookmuseum.org/education/education.htm
5. Deaf Characters in Ya Lit: http://www.pajka.blogspot.com/
6. ReadWriteThink: http://www.readwritethink.org
7. Grouchy: Favorite Teen Angst books: http://www.grouchy.com/angst/index.html
8. Teen Reads: http://www.teenreads.com
9. YA Authors Café: http://mysite.verizon.net/selimsa803/default.html
10. YALSA: http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/yalsa.cfm
11. Voice of Youth Advocates: http://www.voya.com
12. Comic books for Young Adults: http://ublib.buffalo.edu/lml/comics/pages/index.html
13. Multicultural Review: http://www.mcreview.com
14. School Library Journal: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com
15. Hornbook: http://www.hbook.com/index.shtml
16. Vandergrift’s Page: http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/YoungAdult/
17. The Literary Link: http://theliterarylink.com/
18. Literacy Matters: http://www.literacymatters.org/adlit/intro.htm
19. Miami University’s Picture Book database: http://www.lib.muohio.edu/pictbks/
20. Guys Read: http://www.guysread.com/
21. Book Awards Information: http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/awards.html
22. Reader’s Theatre: http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/RTE.html
23. American Library Association: http://www.ala.org/
24. Folklore and Mythology Texts: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html
By Friday, January 25, please post a reply telling the class which link you will take. There are more links than there are students, so do not double up (if you review a link that someone else has already reviewed, you will not get credit for the assignment).
So, by Friday, simply post something like. "Hi! I'll take #12!"
I'll post the actual due date for the weblink reviews later.
posted by Bucky C. @ 10:26 AM
34 comments
34 Comments:
Regina here! #20
Hey, I'll take #14
this is Trista I'll take #7
This is Amanda. I want #24!
This is Ashlee. ill take #8
Shayla here!! I'll take #11
Brittney wants #2 :)
Tiffany will gladly take #3, the comic book project
Eric, #16
#9 for me.
"Hi! I'll take #12!"
It's now 5:45 and 11 of us have posted. For the remainder, let's remember that we need to meet our deadlines when it comes to posting to the blog. Posting on time does go into your participation grade. So, thanks to you who made deadline, and let's get those links called, the rest of ya!
Corey Hart. #21.
Amy Barnes will take #22.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hi i'll take #15 since #8 already been chosen...
4 looks good. Sorry this was so late, but My password mysteriously changed or something. odd.
>^.^<
Guess I'll do 13 then since my link was broken
Vandergrift’s Page
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/YoungAdult/
Reviewed by Eric Foster
Okay, so this website looks pretty cheesy, but it has a good deal of useful information and resources regarding young adult literature. One of the most useful resources this site has to offer is Vandergrift’s 100: List of Young Adult Authors and Titles. Of course, this is basically just another “best” book list but it may be helpful in choosing good young adult literature to use in the classroom. This list may also help you put together your own individual book list, so if you are struggling to find good titles you might want to check it out. Best of all, this list is updated from year to year so you will not find the same old things on it over and over again. This site also has individual pages for young adult readings on various titles, reader response and feminist literary criticism on young adult literature, female and male coming-of-age stories, and literary biographies and autobiographies on various young adult authors. Each one of these pages has a selected bibliography, in most cases a rather lengthy bibliography, which may be helpful in choosing classroom reading or for your own personal use. There is also a nice list of links to other sites, not all of them necessarily regarding literature, young adult or otherwise. Vandergrift’s Page also has a fairly large cyber library of downloadable PDF files, mostly teacher/student friendly digital articles concerning young adult literature and literary criticism. It may also be worth mentioning that there are a few teacher tips peppered throughout the site, but you’ll have to keep your eyes open for them as they are not organized in any particular fashion. So, all in all this site looks cheap but it does contain quite a lot of useful resources concerning the teaching and study of young adult literature.
I took number 11 under the small group discussion post. The website I visited was an interesting site for both teachers and students. Voya has three main principles that are young adult library services, intellectual freedom with equal access, and youth advocacy and participation. This site also holds poetry contest and summer reading list.
Title: "Folklore and Mythology Texts"
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html
Reviewed by: Amanda Kinnison
For this assignment I reviewed the Mythological and Folklore texts link found at the link above. This site had a lot of useful information on it. Although the information was very plentiful, I did think that it could have used better organization on the webpage. Even thought the texts were alphabetical in order, they were alphabetized by author AND text title which was a little confusing to follow. I think the site should have chosen one or the other and not both ways of organization. The hyper-links available on the pages were very structured and informational to view. I would consider using this site in my classroom for reference in the future, but I would have to examine other sites as well to compare this one to.
I found the folk and fairy tale links on the main page to be the most useful aspect of the site. Under its table of contents were links to helpful search engines, online encyclopedias and libraries, links to other useful websites, electronic text libraries etc. I visited a few of the links offered, and they were very helpful also in my opinion. The Libraries of Electronic Texts listed dozens of sites and described each of them in detail as to what they offered in reference to the subject regarding fairy tale and mythological literature. A few great additions to this page were the foreign language website links. Each of these links offered other links to sites in the following languages: Danish/Norwegian, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. I found these links to be very helpful, and I would definitely use this site for future reference. I think that it would be very helpful in a classroom with foreign students who have transferred or are having problems in English alone. By using these other sites offered they can access information which is familiar to them. Altogether, I would say that this mythological and folklore young adult literature site is a good source of information for students interested in this genre. The information was overly abundant, and the links were correct and not broken.
School Library Journal
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com
Reviewed by Amy Dozier
The first thing I notice when looking at the site is how professional it looks. It is easy to navigate and loaded with useful resources. The website terms itself as “the world’s largest reviewer of books, multimedia, and technology for children and teens.” I really believe that this may be true because the website is filled with so much information on YA books. There are so many reviews and recommendations and also interviews with authors. One nice thing is that one can specifically choose which type of books he wants feedback on because they are separated into categories such as K-4, 5th grade and up, high school books, and reference books. The reviews are done by average people from all over the country and they can post blogs and videos as well as write in. There are even web reviews of sites that can help teachers and anyone else interested in literature for young people. This site is very helpful and very up to date. If one needs a review of a new book I am sure this website will have one. If the internet version of the site is not what you want then there is also a print version of the journal. On today’s page there happens to be a movie interview with Markus Zusak which I will definitely watch since I loved The Book Thief so much.
Hey folks. These reviews need to average at least 1 printed page in length to be near adequate. The syllabus should say as much. So, if you need to repost, please do so and let me know and I'll delete your original review post.
Title: "Comic Books For Young Adults"
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/lml/comics/pages/index.html
Reviewed By: Joseph Tenney
I chose the article entitled “Comic Books For Young Adults”. In this article, Michael R. Lavin addresses the literary value of comics for young adults. He explains how comics are the perfect literary tool for visual learners and how today’s society has become more adapted to the type of cinematic presentation that comic books exemplify. Lavin also points out that comics represent another aspect of literature and as such can broaden the horizons of literary scholars. Lavin addresses many of the concerns that critics would have for this unconventional method of learning and makes a good attempt to not leave any questions unanswered. All of this is seemingly in an attempt to persuade librarians to keep comic books in their libraries as literary equals to novels and such. Lavin describes in detail all of the genres of comics as well as recommending some comics that Lavin thought to be particularly important. Lavin also touches lightly on the graphic novel and how it differs from the traditional comic book. As far as the structure of this site, I thought that it was very well put together. Everything was broken down into compact segments that made it easier to focus on one topic at a time. Lavin also broke each topic question and answer down into bullets to eliminate confusion and make the information run together smoothly. All of his resources were well documented and scholarly. I believe that this is a great site for both librarians as well as English teachers as it covers the importance of the literary impact of comics and graphic novels on today’s society. I would definitely recommend this site to anyone in the literature teaching business.
Name: Multi-Cultural Review
Site: http://www.mcreview.com/index.html
This looks like a great resource site for libraries and teachers to find books that are part of the multi-cultural genre. It is the only review journal dedicated strictly to its genre, in fact. From what Ive seen, they review everything from children's books, all the way up to adult literature as well.
One thing I didn't like was that you had to subscribe to the journal to read any of the articles. Its a great thing to be attached to, obviously, but its not something I, at this time would keep up with all that well.
Listed on the page for each book reviewed is the title, publisher, a little blurb about the book, and the price, at a glance. This was a very helpful feature. There are links to both the present issues and past issues in the archives, but there didn't seem to be a way to search for a particular title. I may have missed that though.
There is also a page for submission guidelines for those that wish to contribute to the journal. Contact information is avaliable as well to get in touch with those that run the journal. The up and coming page is especially noteworthy, because it highlights what to look for in the next issue.
All in all this was a decent website. It probably wouldn't be one that I would choose to use, because I prefer one where sign up isn't required.
>^.^<
Here's B. Penton's post, which was accidentially placed in the wrong thread, but is now officially in its proper home:
Useful Site for Teachers of English and Reading
The website that I viewed is, http://www.webenglishteacher.com/. This site is especially useful to teachers of English and Reading who might need ideas for assignments. For example, this site has listed that this is Black History Month and it goes on to give examples of black writers that the teacher might want to include in some of this month’s assignments. Another great thing that this site has listed is assignments for advanced placement students. The site had a calendar with assignments for the students, for every day of the month. The site had many great ideas for book reports, it had a list of resources for Children’s Literature, as well as Drama. The site also has lesson plans and many teaching ideas and strategies. This site also listed biographical and critical information and lesson plans on Young Adult Literature listed by the author. This site contains lots of information on writing resources and creative writing. The site has prompts, solutions and also one hundred quick writing ideas.
This site would be very, very useful to first time teachers. It gives great resources and many ideas for teachers to use and develop in the classroom. It would be a great reference site for teachers who find themselves in a rut or who might need a new, fun, idea for the classroom. I will keep a record of this site and will visit it for information and assistance in my classroom. I encourage our class full of future teachers to take a look at this site. It will help in the future.
YA Authors Café Website Review
I am reviewing the YA Authors Café website. What this site basically does is present interviews with authors of young adult literature. Topics range from developing issues in YA literature to the authors’ experiences in writing their works. The website stores past interviews from 2004 and 2005 and also provides links to the official websites of some of authors. However, in trying to rework the website’s presentation, the creators of YA Authors Café have moved it to a web blog, which carries just about the same features as the website. The benefit of this resource is that students receive the opportunity to get to know their favorite authors. After reading the interview, students may leave comments for the author and receive a response from the actual author. YA Authors Café works to break down the wall between author and his/her readers. In developing the relationship between author and reader, the site makes authors appear as they should, as regular people who happen to write. In addition to meeting the author, students can learn about what “real” authors do when writing, such as how they get around writer’s block or other writing obstacles. The website also serves as a way to research a prospective book to read. The books presented look very interesting, and to read what the authors and other readers say about them, students can be easily convinced. To be honest, I will certainly use this in constructing my booklist.
OK, so now it is Feb 7, 2008. If you haven't posted yet, please do. Or, if you realize that your post is insufficient in length and detail, please repost, send me an e-mail letting me know to delete your old post, and be happy.
I chose the website, www.guysread.com, because of the obvious. I am a female teacher-to-be and would like to be able to confidently recommend books to the young gentlemen in my class. If a young girl is to ask me for a book recommendation I can name a plethora. If a young boy is to ask, I could maybe name five (excluding the Harry Potter series). As a future teacher I would like to have a small library in my classroom available for my students. The website “GuysRead” can guide teachers, parents, librarians, and students to interesting books available for the young readers.
The website, “GuysRead,” is tres cool. The flashy graphics holds up to the websites technical standard. I give props to the designer. The homepage is sectioned off in “Introduction to Anthropologists,” “Guys,” and “Adults.” The anthropologist page was a list of men, maybe authors, who gave a quick biography of themselves and reading. I was a little unclear on who they were. The “Guys” page was a page of different listing, where to find books, recommended books, and additional links to other websites.
The founder of the website made it for a “web-based literacy program.” This is not only an awesome concept, but also a proactive way to promote literacy to a new technical generation. I give it two thumbs up.
Corey Hart's Web Review: http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/index.html
David K. Brown’s Children’s Literature Web Guide is a helpful, vast insight into the community of young adult literature. The information is largely gathered by those within the YA community, such as teachers, students, and writers. David K. Brown offers many links to other sites containing YA literature or related matter. There are also discussion boards for fans of YA literature to debate or express love for whatever book has most recently captured their attention.
The best feature of the site just may be its “Quick References” section. Here, Brown offers lists categorized by awards, popularity (both critical and commercial), and The Doucette Index: Teaching Ideas for Children’s Books.
The awards lists are broken up geographically, consisting of International awards, Canadian awards, United States awards, British awards, Australian awards, and New Zealand awards. There are also categories for children’s choice, which include winners of the I. & J. Black Award and the Young Reader’s Choice Award. Other awards sprinkled throughout the geographical sections are the Phoenix Award, Newberry Award, and Carnegie Medal.
The “Best Books of the Year” section offer different “best” lists from different sources including the American Library Association and International Reading Association. These lists go as far back as 1990.
For someone just getting into the world of YA literature, David K. Brown’s site is the place to start. For fans of YA literature, this is a site to bookmark because of the great number of links and lists.
Grouchy: Favorite Teen Angst Books
http://www/grouchy.com/angst/index.html
Reviewed by: Trista Haynes
I reviewed this site and thought that it was very useful when looking for a good book to read. Teens are able to research this site and leave with a great deal of information needed to choose a book of their liking. It has different categories that can be explored depending on what type of book you may be looking for. The names of the categories appeal to the reader because it describes how they may be feeling or what they may be going through. It also gives a well thought out summary of the book for other readers who may be interested in reading that book. It gives the readers a chance to tell them of a website they may have found for teens and liked. There is a place on the site where the teens are able to talk about the books they have read. They are able to express how much they enjoyed their book and how it may have related in some way to their lives. This would be a great site for teachers to have their students go. They could have the class read a book and log onto the site to review the book as a class. They can check the site to see what their class had to say about the book they read. Teachers could benefit from this site in other different ways. If the class has to choose their own individual book to read for class, the teacher can recommend that the students use this site as a reference. It may also make the students want to read knowing they are able to write their reviews on the website and are not being graded on it. It is not looked at like a long, drawn out book report. The site also offers different book links. It gives a list of different authors and goes directly to their website. I would recommend the website to anyone who is looking for a young adults novel. It will also be helpful to me while I am choosing the books for my book list.
Voices of youth advocates is a bimonthly journal designed to address educators, librarians, and any other professionals that may deal with young adult. VOYA was founded in 1978 by a group of librarians and freedom advocates Dorothy M. Broderick and Mary K. Chelton.
VOYA has 3 principles in which its policies are derived. They are specialized YA library services, intellectual freedom and equal access, and youth advocacy and participation.
This particular website is designed to keep up with the changes that occur in Young Adult Literature. It is obvious that this site is structured to knowing adolescents and the professionals that work with these adolescents. This site provides books, information and many other services that are of significant importance when it comes to the ever changing world of young adult literature.
This website provides a chance to be able to experience many books through audio talk which is where one has the opportunity to review an audiobook. There are also online references as well as e-books. There are resources for librarians to help with the last technology for young adult games and etc. This site also provides things that are helpful and of interest to young adults. There are quizes to test their knowledge and links to other websites for young adult literature.
VOYA also provides book reviews, editorials, booklists, and even interviews with some of the authors featured on the site. Overall this site was very easy to manuever and it provides much needed and appreciated information for librarians, teachers, and most importantly for young adults.
Here is smalls51545's weblink review:
I chose the website, http://www.comicbookproject.org/, because after being introduced to the whole “using graphic novels/comic books in the classroom” idea I began to think about and believe in this concept. So, when I saw this option I jumped on it and I was extremely impressed with what I found. I chose this site strictly because of its name and I assumed that it would deal with implementing graphic novels into the classroom, but what I found was way more than that. This project is hosted by Teachers College, Columbia University and the idea behind this project is simply put, genius. Basically, teachers are helping kids to build literacy by allowing them to create their own graphic novels, an alternative way to the traditional approach. They not only come up with the stories, but they also hold the position of illustrator. They work together on the projects, and get to implement their own ideas. What a great way to get and keep kids interested in Literacy!! They are able to build literacy skills, express their creativity, and produce a finished product. Not only do the kids get to work together to create these mini comics, they also get to share their works. For example, they would hold public art exhibits in which the students' works would be displayed for everyone to see. This allows kids the feeling of accomplishment and pride in their work, but in a fun way. The comic book project seems like a brilliant way to not only help all kids build literacy, but especially those kids who would be a little harder to get interested.
The website is very professional, and it lays out the goals and outlines of this project in great detail. I appreciated the history section of this project which pretty much explains how this project came about and where it has evolved as of today. Also on the site, there are galleries of pictures from actual classrooms taking part in this project and a gallery of student artwork. I imagine that the students who are able to see their work on this website must feel like stars!! There is also a link on how to support, participate, and get involved in this project. I was also impressed by how thorough the site is when explaining the ideas of the project. On one part of the site, they even give the outcome objectives, and the process by which the project will accomplish these objectives. For a future wannabe teacher, this was very much appreciated. The layout of the site is easy to navigate, well organized, and very professional and inviting. This website is definitely an A+.
“Reader’s Theatre” reviewed by Amy B:
http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/RTE.html\
Reader’s Theatre is a website devoted to multicultural fables adapted into plays by Aaron Shepherd. The fables themselves are very diverse and include everything from American folktales to Hindu fairytales to Greek and Roman mythology. Each of the scripts is downloadable and free to educators. Most of the plays are geared toward middle to junior high school students, and they are between ten and fifteen minutes long, so they will hold the students’ attention. Each play is accompanied by a short description with the genre, number of readers needed, time, target reading level, synopsis, and theme. This reference to theme makes the plays very accessible and relevant to teachers who use thematic units, and the themes are varied enough to add to many lesson plans. This website is also very valuable for teacher wishing to use stories of different cultures or perspectives. There are classic fairytales, classic fairytales retold, and some of the less familiar stories, such as those from China, Iraq, and Nigeria. This broad perspective helps students to understand different cultures by actually putting the students into a character from a different culture. The plays on this website can also be used in drama classrooms. They are short and accessible enough to appeal to even the most inexperienced actor, and they are easy enough for non-drama English teachers to utilize. There are forty plays to choose from, and they website is easily navigable. I think “Reader’s Theatre” would be extremely helpful to an English teacher. It would probably be most helpful to middle school reading teachers, drama teachers, mythology teachers, and world/multicultural literature teachers. Aaron Shepherd also has many books available with more plays and stories and a website for more information.
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