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.
The reader's adventure begins in Barbados where Kit has boarded the ship and is sailing away to America to live with her Aunt. The ship is sailing through a small inlet and there isn't enough wind to fill the sails. Where is this place and how can we find it? Why was it so important in the first place? Was this the only way in? How close was this river to the towns?
In the beginning of the first chapter, Kit sees America for the first time and is disappointed. She gives us descriptions of both her Barbados home and Saybrook. She remembers Barbados as a "turquoise bay" fringed with "shimmering green and white." Saybrook, in contrast, is described with words like "gray, bleak, bare," and "ugly." These descriptions are on pg. 2. What a stark contrast! How do you think these descriptions foreshadow what might happen later?
