Chapter 5 MTJ, Chapters 2/3 DR

Making the Journey is a text book that I'm never going to sell back to the bookstore! I'm going to keep it so that I can continue to use it throughout my teaching years. I loved the fact that someone has finally written about one of my deepest, darkest fears: Do I have adequate knowledge about English to be an English teacher? Or am I just fooling myself and those around me? Apparently I'm not the only one who has a realistic fear about this, but I really appreciate how Christenbury put a positive spin on that fear, saying that we should be excited about the prospect of continuing to learn while we're teaching others. I am excited to know that my students won't be the only ones in my class who are learning.
I really appreciated the examples of a student-led classroom that she gave us (pgs 131-134). I think it's important for us to see how we as teachers can step aside and let the students become the facilitators of the classroom activities.
I also thought the examples of activities on pg 159 were great ideas for assignments over the reading.
The one thing that confused me was the graphic novel. What is this? Is it a required part of Comm Arts now? I've never heard of it.

Deeper Reading is fairly similar to a book I'm reading in one of my content area literacy classes. I like this one a little bit better, though, because it is easy to read, easy to understand, and has a lot of good guides/charts/activities, etc. On page 43 there is an extended version of the KWL chart that I've seen before, but I like the "R" that has been added on for the research aspect of reading. I would also like to try out the Word Game (pg 47) that he describes. I think that would be a great way for the students to go beyond the words on a page and really look at the meaning and the significance of something. Anything that gets students to write something that is relevant to their reading will improve their comprehension and memory of what they're reading.