So, I feel like a loser posting all of my reactions tonight, but I'll have to do it this way since I've waited up until now.
First up is Arminda. Your presentation was awesome and I loved your subject material. Bringing history to kids in a way that's not the same old boring names and dates is a difficult, but oh-so-worthy thing to do. I'm glad you liked my distinction between HISTORICAL fiction and historical FICTION. Ann Rinaldi is definitely in the former group. I think it's a great way to tie in reading to a particular interest of a kid, once that direction has been ascertained. Bravo!
Second is Dave. Well, I kind of dropped into your seminar unannounced, but for that you didn't break a sweat. I'm a huge Sci-Fi fan anyways, so you didn't have to convince me to love your topic. I esepcially liked the way you kept bringing us back to books, even when we started to backslide into other topics. There's just so much fascinating ground to cover in the genre. I think Science Fiction is one of the ways to discuss any issue with kids, provided the book is well-written. By setting events in a different world, a more objective position can be taken and real discussion can be had. Bravo to you as well!
And last but not least is Dawn, whose seminar I attended also last minute. Kormier was sadly an author I only got into towards the very end of my high school career, and I never got around to reading as much of him as I wanted. Your seminar made me want to go out and read more of hs work. You brought up issues of censorship that are so relevant in today's world, and spoke confidently on each book we looked at. Congrats and Bravo to my last seminar.
So that's it. I know these are brief, but I also wanted to add a universal 'Thanks' to all four seminars that I went to (Jesse, Arminda, Dave, and Dawn). You all did terrific jobs, and i feel like I got to see what you all have been up to all semester.
See you in class tomorrow for the grand finale!
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