Text Issues

      I'm finding it difficult to prioritize reading the Keene text. So much of the context is personal stories of experiences that the author has had. Yes, I think these stories are inspirational, but they are her personal experiences. I cannot really relate to her personal endeavours. I would much rather prefer a text that incorporates teaching literacy throughout the curriculum. I want ideas and techniques to someday use within my classroom to help incorporate literacy in all subjects as well as use literacy to teach other concepts.
     I think that Four Perfect Pebbles is a good book. It's well written and can be incorporated in both literacy and social studies. I think that I would only be able to use the text if I was a 6th grade ELA or SS teacher. It is in 6th grade that students cover old world history. Although it is a good book, I think that we are taking entirely too long on the text. I think that most, if not all of the students have already finished reading it and have moved on to Three Cups of Tea. I, personally, finished the book over a month ago and just skim it over before class to refresh my memory on the context. I think that for such an easy reading level, the text could have been incorporated differently within the context of the class. I think that we could have covered a lot more material over the context of the course had we covered more content each week and less time reading children's picture books.