Eventually our presence became noticed; a kid here or there would look into the art room and kind of giggle before popping back out again. Our audience was divided into two groups, each group spending approximately thirty minutes with us. We put the newspaper editions of The Call of The Wild at each of the seats, and crayons were also put out on the tables.
Anne read a couple of passages from the book, and then she and Luke encouraged the kids to draw what they imagined after hearing the passages. There was a lot of spirited conversation about dogs and how they fit into their lives.
We also talked about sled dogs and how working dogs assisted people. A few of the kids knew what the Alaskan Iditarod is, and remembered learning something about the gold rush. Unfortunately, it seems that none of the kids had read The Call of the Wild even though some issues of the newspaper- style version had been left at the Boys and Girls Club the previous week. The closest they came to the storyline was remembering the movie Balto.
We encouraged the boys and girls to take the story with them when they left. Several of the students declined, but in the end many of them left with their own copy of The Call of the Wild. We left the remaining copies for the Boys and Girls Club to use.
We had materials to support our book discussion and bring a visual depth of our topics to the boys and girls at the club.
Jack London's book introduces many avenues to explore such as wolves in the wild, wolves in relation to man and dogs, working dogs, the gold rush and survival. Working with young children, I wanted to include a book that had a good visual impact, and so I used The Eyes of Gray Wolf by Jonathan London, and National Geographic's "Wolf Wars: Once Protected, Now Hunted" by Douglas Chadwick (March 2010). (archive.nationalgeographic.com)
We also had a passage to read which had been translated (courtesy of Bing Translator) into Spanish as a possible avenue for engaging some of the bilingual students. We did not use this with either of the groups. I think their level of engagement wasn't developed sufficiently for the book discussion at this time. The passage was on page 46 (our text) and page 28 in the newspaper edition. A couple of the students looked the English up in the newspaper edition. It was not something I had previously thought of doing.
In keeping with a "natural" and sustainable presentation, I also made a scrapbook of working dogs, and the Alaskan Iditarod. I had a pad of recycled material that had been on clearance in the SUNY Fredonia Bookstore. I pasted pictures (http://www.bing.com/images/search) for visual "talking points" with the kids. I was able to obtain a picture of a Saint Bernard, which was included with the results of my internet search for working dogs.
In our discussion of working dogs, we also talked about the Alaskan Iditarod and the gold rush.
How could you talk about The Call of the Wild and Alaska, and NOT talk about wolves, especially when Buck finds a wolf mate and starts a family -- one of the main reasons Buck reverts to his instinctual behavior when drawn to the wild and away from humanity?
The event at the Boys and Girls Club Big Read Event (http://www.nea.gov/) was a meaningful experience and even immensely enjoyable, once we were able to get past the panic that we would not have an audience at all. I think being a new community partner, the Boys and Girls Club-community partnership needs a little extra effort next time in connecting, as the director and staff were unprepared, and understandably so, dealing with so many energetic kids! It would be nice to have a few kids actually read some of the book beforehand, as the best that we could do was go along with the group reference to a Disney film Balto. I wonder, would a "graphic" novel version engage the interest of the kids? We briefly touched on the adaptations of literature to movies, etc. during our group discussions.
It would also be nice to see the Big Read announcement posters in Thompson, especially since the School of Business and early childhood cirriculum is located there. I would like to see greater public school and library engagement also. Maybe the Dunkirk Senior Citizen center? And more Hispanic outreach? I know the focus is to teach English, but are we missing some connections because of a language barrier? -- Doreen
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Ultimately the Big Read at the Boys and Girls Club was a success. We had two groups of kids, split up between older and younger. There were 12 kids in each of the groups, and a worker from the boys and girls club to help us out. Counting the 3 of us, that's 28 people participating in the event.
ReplyDeleteFor our activity, we gave each of the kids some paper and crayons. I had chosen a few passages that I read to the kids, and had them draw what they envisioned the story was about. The passages involved trees, and snow, and dogs. This was a successful activity because it sparked the kids creativity, and it made reading a fun experience. I think it is important to keep kids engaged in creativity because it is enjoyable and it is a helpful tool for learning.
I think the most important goal of this activity was to inspire the children in reading for the sake of reading. Too often kids grow up only reading what their teachers, and parents force them to read. In order to get the children excited about reading we tried to keep the energy up in the discussion at all times. Most of them had never read Call of the Wild before let alone any books whatsoever. In my mind we were not only trying to sell this novel, but any novel. So, just in case they hated dogs, or didn’t like Alaska we could turn their attention to other good qualities all novels have. We really wanted to press upon on their imaginations can be a fun tool if they know how to use it. I think our exercise really exemplified this. After we read them a passage from the novel, they had to use their imaginations to draw what they saw in their heads.
ReplyDeleteWe figured that another good way to reach the children was to relate to their dogs at home. We asked the groups if they owned any dogs, and what kind of dogs they were. Unfortunately no one had a Saint Bernard, but talking about their animals got the kids pretty excited to hear about Buck. After they had finished their drawings, most of them wanted more paper in order to draw another! I think we were all really touched when some of the kids gave us the pictures they drew.
As for accomplishing the goal of the Big Read, I think we did as best as we could have done. Many of the children probably will not read Call of the Wild but even if one or two do find the inclination to read this novel then we will have succeeded I think. Perhaps because we had them bring home their own copies of the novel their parents will help press upon them the importance of reading. In my mind, if the children read any novel at all I think we will have succeeded. We were trying to just plant a seed of interest in their minds, and hopefully it will grow into something great.