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Dale Bennett July 25, 2005 NYIT EDLA 615 Professor Susan Silverman
Reflection on Midterm Extension Project
I first became interested in producing a meaningful ABC Book about Bridge To Terabithia after seeing an ABC Book that a class posted on your website. Before, I thought an ABC Book was only for very young elementary school classes. But when I read theirs, I got such a sense of the book they had read: the setting, the characters and the plot as well. It made me believe it would be a wonderful extension project to do for this assignment. It truly made me reflect on the book many times over, especially doing it as a group project. We went back into the book to look for quotes and paragraphs to pull out and use in our ABC Book. I found myself re-reading almost the entire book. This time I could see the foreshadowing taking place more because I knew what was to come. I loved doing this project and I believe it was very meaningful – not just an art project (as you said). I believe this will be a lesson I will incorporate in my future teaching career many times over in various forms.
Karen Romagna August 5, 2005 I had very much enjoyed reading, and also our discussions about, the book Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. With that and the fact that the book had such a tragedy happen so close to the end I felt especially sad that the book had to end. So this extension project was just what I needed! The ABC book we chose as our extension project gave us all a chance to re-read (most, if not all) parts of the book and remember and even discover things that we might have missed the first time we read it. Working in a group with Dale and Leighann, most of the time in person, was also a positive experience. Not only did we re-read to find quotes but it also gave us a chance to talk about our thoughts and feelings and make decisions as a group. Deciding on what quotes to use and what letters to assign them was a process that really made us think of the most important parts of the story that we wanted our audience to understand. The process of adding pictures is another way to add depth to the presentation and keep our audience involved and interest. For us as a group we had a great time finding them (a special thank you to Dale) and deciding collectively which ones to use. After all our work was completed, I could hardly wait to see our finished project –which I must say I was happily impressed by!
Leighann Hollweig While the three of us brainstormed on what we were going to do for our project we checked out some of the sites you suggested. The one we liked best was the ABC book. We weren’t really sure what the ABC book was. As we read on we figured it out and started thinking of what we were going to do. How we would use the ABC book to tell the story of Bridge to Terebethia. We had to make sure we included all of the characters, the setting, and the plot.
The three of us used our books and tried to find what word or words went with each letter. And then once we did that we needed to find quotes in the book that would fit and that would work to tell the story. And then finally look for pictures that would correspond with the letters and quotes. In the beginning it seemed like it was never going to come together. But as we did more and more it all came together. In the end, the final draft came out great! I think that this ABC book would be very beneficial to all students.
I think that you could incorporate all grades with the ABC book and use it with all subjects. I can definitely see myself using this lesson again in the future. I had a lot of fun doing this project and working with Dale and Karen. We make a great team!
Assessment Bridge To Terebethia Extension Project ABC BOOK By Dale Bennett, Leighann Hollweig and Karen Romagna
EXPERT x project clearly communicates meaning x well organized x visually creative and artistic x thorough attention to details x convincingly draws audience to book
Comments By reading and viewing this ABC Book, the reader will have gain a good overview of this story. By use of the carefully selected quotes that correspond to the letters of the alphabet and the pictures that go along with the letters and the quotes will help to peak their interest.
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