Reading Response Sheets

Instructions for Writing a Reading Response

The title of the story: The Chalk Box Kid

Writer Name: Clyed Robert Bulla

Heading

Begin with a heading that clearly indicates the following:

1. Your name

2. Content area

Part I:

A. Essential Data. The first part of the response should include this information:

Example. Use APA style.

* Author’s

* Illustrator (if appropriate)

* Year of publication

* Title of book

* Place of publication

* Publisher

* Number of pages

* ISBN

* The book’s classifications in terms of format, genre, and content. Include general and specific categories within each category (list as many as are appropriate) in which the work might be included (i.e. picture book/historical fiction/Colonial America; or novel/historical fiction/WWII/Germany/personal problems; or informational picture book/science/rain

forests/Brazil; or realistic fiction/Appalachia/coal mining/family relationships/personal problems; or poetry/Middle East/friendship; or animal fantasy/mice/adventure/romance, etc.)

* Names and ages of main characters.

B. Descriptive Phase/Summary: A brief summary of the book’s plot.

Please note that you are to write the plot summary yourself.

It is not to be copied from the Library of Congress summary, the book jacket, book reviews, other annotation sources, or the text. Resist even using phrases written by others. Learning to write a good summary is an essential skill, and this is an excellent place to practice. Remember to include only factual information in the summary. Your own thoughts and opinions are considered interpretations and can only be included in the Parts II and III.

• Related titles, authors, and themes you have read that this book might be paired with and why.

Part II: Personal Connection and interpretation

The second part should be your own personal response to the book. Describe the connections (feelings/emotions, thoughts, associations) the book elicits and reflect on why the book had this effect on you as its reader. Answer some or all of the following questions to help you.

• Have you ever experienced this? Does this relate to your family? Someone you know?

• What new knowledge did you gain from reading the text?

• How do you feel about your new understandings?

• What effect did reading the book have on you?

• What feelings, emotions and connections could you make to the events in the book?

Provide details and examples (but not long quotations) from the text to help you describe and explain your personal response. It is appropriate to use “I” in this section, but not the other two.

Part III: Evaluation and Critical Analysis.

The third part should include the following:

A. A brief evaluation (i.e. comments describing or evaluating literary aspects–such as plot, style, setting, characterization, themes-and illustrations).

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B. This should include critical analysis through drawing inferences, and seeking implications. The following questions may help you.

• Whose viewpoint is expressed?

• What does the author want us to think?

• Is the knowledge valid?

• For whom is the knowledge valid? Always? Why?

• Is it applicable for all cultures, classes, ethnicities?

• Is it gender-free?

• Is it culturally appropriate?

• Who is silenced, missing or discounted?

• How might alternative perspectives be represented?

Part IV: Sharing books with children and Creative Action Phase

The fourth part should include this information

• How would you teach this book? (include information on appropriate grade level, how you would introduce it, instructional strategies you would use etc.)

• What are some of the issues would you share with children in your classroom?

• How can students take the theory or new knowledge and use it to improve the life

of the community?

• How can learning move from the classroom to the real world of the students?

EDC 386: Sample reading response sheets

Part I

A. Essential Data. The first part of the response should include this information:

Example. Use APA style.

* Author’s

* Illustrator (if appropriate)

* Year of publication

* Title of book

* Place of publication

* Publisher

* Number of pages

* ISBN

Categories: Contemporary realistic fiction, growing-up, family life, writing, sea shore life, creativity, intergenerational relationships

Main characters: Cassie Binegar, 9 or 10; Margaret Mary, 9 or 10

Descriptive Phase/Summary: Cassie has recently moved to a new home where her family will rent beach cottages to summer visitors. She looks for a space to call her own where she can write her poetry, but does not find one. She and her new friend, Margaret Mary, visit each other in their respective houses. Mary Margaret’s mother keeps their house neat and orderly; Cassie wishes hers was not cluttered with dusty books and marred by stained kitchen counters. A writer named Jason and some of Cassie’s relatives come to live in the cottages, and Jason falls in love with Cassie’s cousin Coralinda. After Jason tells Cassie that each of us has a space of his own that he carries around inside himself, she no longer searches for a physical space of her own. Gran, who is newly widowed, tells Cassie that growing up is learning to look at the world through someone else’s glasses. The story ends with Jason marrying Coralinda.

Related titles: Sarah, Plain and Tall because it is also by Patricia MacLachlan and speaks of the love of the sea. The Haunting by Margaret Mahy because a female character in this book also wants to be a writer.

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Part II: Personal Connection and Interpretation

I can identify with Cassie wanting her family to be different. As a child, I too found my parents embarrassing, and my children probably feel this way about me at times. As a parent, I realize the fragile, fleeting nature of family moments and wish I did not feel duty-bound to spend so much time trying to correct my children’s table manners, etc. I suppose this relates to being embarrassed by one’s family as well as trying to protect them from embarrassing themselves. I am envious of Cassie’s relationship with her grandmother because I never knew either of my grandmothers very well. Because I grew up near the beach, I loved reading about it, even though the eastern seashore in this story is very different from the beaches I knew in southern California. I enjoyed this book greatly, particularly the gentle way in which it is written and the many questions it raises and does not try to answer directly. I like the way the family shows unconditional love, and I like the humor with which they relate to each other.

Part III- Evaluation and Critical Analysis

A. This is a sensitive story about a girl trying to find her own physical and mental space. She longs for order and consistency, but comes to accept change as inevitable and valuable because it heightens the importance of every moment and each experience. As it is with a kaleidoscope, no pattern remains forever-all patterns change, all are different, and all are beautiful. As Gran puts it, “Life is filled with small, perfect moments that are there for only a short time. And then gone. Like catching snow in your hand.” Nothing remains perfect forever. Cassie comes to see change in people as an emergence from one stage in life to another. With the help of her family and friends, Cassie’s anger about moving and guilt about her grandfather’s death dissolve into insight about herself and human nature. Gran tells Cassie that “growing is putting on different glasses to look at life,” and over the course of the novel, Cassie begins to view the world through others’ eyes. The novel’s other characters are well-drawn, interesting, and appropriately complex. They help Cassie understand the necessity of looking beyond first impressions. MacLachlan’s use of language is particularly enjoyable. She uses figurative speech effectively when she includes similes such as “the gulls were like her [Cassie’s] family, noisy and raucous’ and the cottages are “spread about the house like seeds sown from an apron.” Her descriptions of the seashore transport the reader to the sand dunes and the sea through vivid visual, tactile, and olfactory imagery. Symbolism, such as Cassie’s dollhouse, Cousin Coralinda’s feathers, Uncle Hat’s rhyming, and Margaret Mary mother’s plastic flowers, add a pleasurable intellectual dimension to the story. This introspective novel is probably best suited for upper elementary students who don’t require lots of action and appreciate subtlety.

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B. I do think that the audience for this story is primarily white and American, but the themes in the story –themes of change, death, finding ones’ place, sharing, and the importance and appreciation of family are universal. The author wants us to understand that we all have to experience change and that change is good, it just depends on how we look at it. The story is told from the viewpoint of Cassie and her feelings about life, space and family. Apart from the introduction of Margaret Mary, her English friend, Cassie’s world is small, which is usual for most children. However, this does add a slight international/multicultural flavor to the book.

Part IV: Sharing books with children and Creative Action Phase

After reading this book students could write about their families, draw family trees or write a little autobiography. Encouraging students to help or visit relatives or neighbors who have lost a loved one might be something students could do for the action phase.

Scoring Guide and Rubric

Part 1: Essential Date and Description/Summary /5

Bibliographic information is complete and accurate.

Plot is summarized concisely with adequate details.

Summary does not contain interpretative comments.

If non-narrative format, content is described clearly and objectively.

Suggests related titles and explains their connections.

Part II: Personal Connection /10

Reader’s personal response to or associations with the book

or certain aspects of it are clearly described,

Specific details are provided to clarify and explain responses.

Part III: Evaluation and Critical Analysis /15

Provides an opening statement about of the book as a whole.

Focuses on specific noteworthy literary aspects and incorporates

details and examples into the literary analysis.

Includes discussion of illustrations when appropriate.

Shows an understanding of appropriate audiences for the book.

Book analyzed from a critical literacy perspective

Part IV: Sharing books with Children and/Action Phase /10

Use of strategies learned in class.

Strategies for sharing appropriate for grade level

Innovative strategies and ideas for action phase.

Writing, Mechanics /10

Writing is free of mechanical or structural errors.

Writing is clear and easy to understand.

Response observes the page limit.

Total possible points 50 _________________