Al Capone Does my Shirts....and he saves the day...

Al Capone Does my Shirts is by far my favorite book read thus far in TE448. I felt a strong connection to the characters and I felt like I was right there with them. I thought this book was wonderfully written. However, I wonder about the role that Al Capone played in this book. Many know Al Capone for his criminal record and the things he has done wrong. But in this book it is told to the reader that Al Capone helps Moose and his family get Natalie in the Esther P. Marinoff School when she has been rejected twice already. I wonder why Al Capone was chosen to be the person who saves the day?
The book did bring up many historical facts about the prison and the prisoners that resided there. This is helpful for the reader because it gives them the background information that might be needed to know.
I thought that this book did a good job at not portraying the typical stereotypes that are usually given to persons with disabilities. There were a few words used; retarded and stupid, to describe Natalie by Piper, but this type of language was not repeated during the book. It is typical of a young person to use these types of words and not really understand the meaning behind some of the words that they use and that they can be considered offensive. I also thought the book did a good job at trying not to portray the typical stereotypes about the descriptions used for persons with disabilities. For example in the Tal article, she states, "Common stereotypes identified by Douglas Biklen and Robert Bogdan include portraying the disabled character as weak or pathetic, a burden to others, or incapable of participating fully in everyday life". This was interesting to me because certain parts of the text stood out to me that followed these certain stereotypes. However, sometimes the book portrayed the opposite side to this argument too. So all in all I think the book did a good job at addressing the subject matter.
I am not surprised that this book received the award that it did.

Awards for Diverse Literature

Last week in class we discussed different types of awards given to diverse literature. It was an interesting topic for me because I was not aware of most of these awards given to diverse literature. The group that I was in researched the Lambda Literacy Foundation Award. This award is given to LGBT literature. I had never heard about this award before so it was interesting to research and become more knowledgeable about this type of award.
Both of the articles that we discussed raised many important points. I feel that all books should be considered for an award. I don't think it should matter if the book deals with diverse literature or not. Pinkney talked about in his article that books should be honored for their diverse literature because it lets people become more aware of diverse literature and that they are being honored for their work as well. I think it is also important for the certain minority group to be recognized in literature. It has to be such a good feeling for them to know that their minority group is receiving an award for their literature.
However I can understand where Aronson is coming from with his viewpoints. But I think that it is better for these books to be awarded because it shows support for the minority group and to let other people be more aware of such minority groups. It also shows children that there are books winning these awards that come from different minority groups and they should be aware of such literature.

Bronx Masquerade Discussion

Last week in class my group had a great discussion about the text, Bronx Masquerade. The question that was posed to our group was along the lines of, do you think it is the teachers responsibility to intervene when it comes to cliques in their classroom/school. To discuss this question we all shared our experiences with different cliques. For the most part we all had similar experiences when it came to cliques and how each group was treated by everyone else in the school. So when we shared our thoughts about if teachers should intervene at all, there were some good points that were brought up by my peers. I feel that a teacher should intervene in the classroom if it is making it hard for the students to work together. For example, if there is a certain clique in the classroom that would never work with other members of the class for whatever reasons. Then I feel that it is the teachers responsibility to make it a point to mix and match the students when doing group work. So instead of having the students pick their own groups the teacher would already have groups picked. The teacher should also tell the students at the beginning of the year that the classroom is seen as a community of learners and that everyone is to work with one another and respect each other. I feel that there isn't much the teacher can do when it comes to the children outside of the classroom but hopefully making the children work with one another would make them see a different side to their peers.
I really enjoyed this discussion with my group. I feel we all had really good points to bring up and it was interesting to hear everyone else's experiences in high school. We also shared some of the poems that we liked a lot in the book and it was neat to hear everyone's explanations to their specific poems.