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.
On page 93, I found a good passage that would lead into a good discussion question for a group of students.
"It was an odd word: pride. Annemarie looked at the Rosens, sitting there, misshapen, ill-fitting clothes, holding ragged blankets folded in their arms, their faces drawn and tired."
Is pride what you look like? Did the Rosens have pride at this moment in the book?
"The shape moved. And she knew. It was her mother, lying on the earth." When I read this passage, it scared me to possibly think that Annemarie's mother was perhaps dead. Had the German soldiers found her and executed her? Why else was she laying on the ground? What could have gone wrong? This was a great way for the author to end this chapter. No way could a reader not continue reading. Should one consider this the"high-point" of the story so far? Please share you views.
In chapter 11, at the bottom of the page it states...
"But their shoulders were as straight as they had been in the past: in the classroom, on the stage, at the Sabbath table. So there were other sources, too, of pride, and they had not left everything behind."
This passage in the story was when the Jews were leaving Uncle Henrik's house to get on his boat to go to Sweden. I was thinking, can you imagine having to leave everything you have behind and go somewhere to start your life all over? I'm scared about graduating college and having to leave my zone of comfort. This story really makes you think about how fortunate you really are. This story would be great to have students feel appreciative of what they have. It would be a great idea to have children write a thank-you letter to their guardians about what they are thankful for.
"It was all imaginary, anyway- not real. It was only in fairy tales that people were called upon to be so brave, to die for one another. Not in real- life Denmark. Oh, there were the soldiers; that was true. And the courageous Resistance leaders, who sometimes lost their lives; that was true, too.
But ordinary people like the Rosens and the Johansens? Annemarie admitted to herself, snuggling there in the quiet dark, that she was glad to be an ordinary person who would never be called upon for courage."
When Annemarie said..."Not in real-life," I had to go back and read because that amazed me. Since their family had seen such a drastic change in the past year, I figured that she may have already known that having to be brave to this capacity did not happen ONLY in fairy tales. I just thought that she would have known about the reality of what could happen since she seemed to be in the middle of it.
Let me know what you think.
I found a passage on p. 17 that made me a bit sad. The last paragraph of the page states, "And they lived happily ever after" Annemarie recited, whispering into the dark, completing the tale for her sister, who slept beside her, one thumb in her mouth."
This passage made me sad because Kirsti was still in a stage of innocence while Annemarie, still yearning to be in this stage, is realizing that the world is not a fairytale, especially during those times.
I thought that the story Annemarie told her sister was quite nice. The idea of how the king of their country could be found each morning taking a ride around, speaking to the people. On many other occasions the king made time to interact with the people of his country.
Can you imagine how it would be to interact with your countries leader on a regular basis.
What do you think you might say to your leader?
(This could be a good activity for Social Studies)... letter writing!
Near the end of Chapter 2, Papa exclaimed "The whole world has changed. Only the fairy tales remained the same". I find this scary but probably a reality of war. Adults have to face up to the world's ugliness, but a little girl, still believing in fairy tales, has a good escape from reality. Your thoughts?
I was curious what you guys thought of this passage, "There had been no coffee in Copenhagen since the beginning of the Nazi occupation." The author never went back to the "Nazi occupation" and gave further information. Do you think students would understand the term, "Nazi occupation"? If this was a read aloud in my classroom, I would stop at this point and have open discussion with my class. I would allow students to share ideas and come to a conclusion of what happened during the "Nazi occupation".
