Pre-service teachers used blogs to discuss award-winning Newbery books using reading roles creativiely adapted from Harvey Daniel's 'Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in the Student-centered Classroom'. Contact Anne Davis at adavis@gsu.edu if you have questions.
These blogs were moved from Manila blogs to TypePad blogs. The author shows up on each post as Anne Davis as a result of the transfer. The original posts were made by students and the instructors Lynne Jordan & Anne Davis. The initials on the post title signify who did the actual blogging of the post.
I located another idiom on page 120. It reads:
"Like a single bird across a stormcloud sky, a tiny peace winged its way through the chaos inside his body."
This statement doesn't mean that peace actually flew inside his body but instead it means that the feeling of peace (calmness) came over him and soothed the turmoil he was feeling.
She understood the situation as peace winged its way into her heart.
As y'all know, I have had a difficult time trying to track down an idiom. Well I think that I finally found one. In my book it is on pg. 106 and at the top of the page.
Jess says, "and with the numbness flooding through him.."
This saying caught my attention because numbness does not really flood through you rather it is jsut a feeling that you get. Overall, this is probably the closest thing that I could find to an idiom. Let me know what y'all think.
Idioms are so difficult to find in this book, but I believe I found a phrase that will fit the category. On page 95 (my book), The text reads:
"She wasn't standing there on her tippytoes while anxiety ate holes through all her stomachs."
Ofcourse, anxiety doesn't literally "eat holes" through any organs! Yet, this is a wonderful description of how anxiety can make a person, particularly a child, feel.
Here is a great idiom that I found in chapter 8.
Page 102 (in my book)
My dad's got laid off, and Brenda and Ellie are fit to fry 'cause they can't have new clothes for Easter.
fit to fry - angry, upset, mad, enraged, bitter, displeased, irate, furious, and devastated.
The customer was fit to fry because they could not use their coupon at the store.
I understand idioms to be phrases we use in the English language, that if they were taken literally wouldn't make sense. For example, on page 51 it reads, "Williard Hughes, I reckon. Every girl in the seventh grade slides to the ground when he walks by." The author doesn't mean that the girls literally slide to the ground. She is referring to the way they act around him. When I read this line, I pictured the girls acting flustered and shy around him. Idioms are also useful ways for authors to incorporate descriptive writing in their stories.
