“Teach This” Response #1
The YA book I
chose is Loving in Time this book has
been classed as an adventure book, as well as a humor and romance. The book
follows the journey of a young girl named Helen through time. Set in England
the book starts out with an ordinary senior in high school named Helen, we are
introduced to her best friend Paris, and her regular life in high school. We
get to see her ordinary family which consists of a mother, father and twin
brothers. Then something unexpected and strange occurs, Helen’s parents let two
boys move in. After many strange encounters and constant whispers, Helen
realizes something is going on. We follow Helen through her journey, and search
for the truth of what is going on with these boys. It doesn’t help when more
boys are introduced into her life, along with Helen we get constantly irritated
with all the secrets. Only to finally find out what is going on, these boys are
from the past and have come to retrieve Helen. Helen is constantly reincarnated
and each time the boys try to get her help, unfortunately every time has ended
in tragedy. Hopeful that this time is different Helen travels back in time with
these boys, falls in love, and realizes history isn’t quite right. There is no
Helen of Troy, its Helen and Troy.
This
book is not only an interesting adaption of history but it is also a book that
will get kids interested. Including books that are fun and interesting is
important to involve young readers. Like Butcher and Hinton said “Incorporate
more young adult literature into the curriculum to develop interest in and a
love for books. (Bucher, Hinton 70).” High schoolers often feel like they
shouldn’t like reading because it’s ‘‘not cool’’ and the only books that they
will read, or at least hear about, are the ones in their English classes.
Therefore, if you have interesting books in English the kids could be more
willing to read them. This is due partially because they seem interesting; and
partially because they can use the excuse that they are reading “for class.” We
as teachers should also be interested in the books we teach, and I love this
book.
This
book will also reach too many students because it has a little bit of
everything. There is humor, adventure, romance, and some Greek history. The
book even includes a war, and while is a fiction book, a lot of research was
obviously put into it to get accurate aspects of Ancient Greece. Just looking
at how much research and time that was put into the writing of this book is
extremely interesting in itself.
Another
thing that really interests me about this book is that it is a fictional, new
age adaption of a historical event. This could allow me to create a
conversation comparing the actual story of Helen of Troy, with the book about
Helen and Troy. This would be something I could partner with the History
department to do. I believe it would lead to a very interesting discussion.
As a side note
pertaining to this particular type of comparison, the author has written more
than one adaption piece like this. She also wrote a book called Journey Through Time; it is the sequel
to this book. Unfortunately this book hasn’t been published yet, but I think
this would be a wonderful book for comparison too. Journey Through Time is an adaption of The Odyssey, which would make it even easier to use in an English
class.
As for assignments,
I would compare the book with historical events, which I would partner with the
History department to do. We can start by comparing with a Venn diagram
individually and lead to a full class discussion. Since this book has many
characters that my students can relate to, I will have each student pick a
character they relate too. They can then explain why they relate to them, in an
essay, Venn diagram, or through a picture. In the picture they could draw
similar interests or feelings. Lastly, we would also have a fun project in
which the kids try to create a sort of family tree. There are many references
to past lives and how the boys were related (in some sense) to Helen, I think
it would be interesting to figure out the different relationships throughout
the story.
References
1.
Bucher, Katherine, and
KaaVonia Hinton. Young Adult Literature: Exploration,
Evaluation,
and Appreciation. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education,
2014.
Print.
2.
Kirk, A. E. Loving
in Time. Great Britain: Vanguard, 2013. Print.
Emily,
ReplyDeleteWhat a cool idea for a book! I am a big fan of Greek mythology. I must admit, though, every time I read something about Helen, I got aggravated – look what kind of trouble her beauty caused! But then, would we have had The Odyssey or The Iliad? I also remember thinking that, in many ways, she was such a one-dimensional character, but your choice of Loving in Time has me wanting to revisit both the mythology and this interesting turn on a classic. Having Paris as her best friend? Wow.
Have you checked out the story behind the discovery of the archaeological site of Troy? The reason I ask this is I know you mentioned the idea of partnering with the history department on the subject. The city had been thought to be mythical, until Heinrich Schliemann excavated it. The story goes that he was reading The Iliad and used the clues written by Homer to find it (although Schliemann actually got the idea from Frank Calvert).
I liked your idea of a family tree – to run down the boys’ relationship to Helen would almost be a class in and of itself, given that her mythos includes references to four or five husbands! Your class may also enjoy mapping out their own family tree.
Thanks for another idea for me to add to my growing list of books.
This book sounds very interesting--when you spoke about it today in class I really found myself thinking "Wow, this would be a great book to use when teaching Greek mythology!"
ReplyDeleteYou have done great job providing us with the background.
Don't take this as me being the older students giving you praise that is annoying, but I really LOVE your lesson ideas you have created for this Teach This #1. It is very impressive considering you have not taken any Education classes where we spend entire semesters learning about what exactly should go into a lesson plan and how to engage the students fully and effectively.
Another cool lesson you could consider adding to this book would be putting on a play. I think of how traditionally we learn about Greek mythology is through these epic playwrights. This would not only get the kids moving around, but they would have to be ultra creative in how their costumes would be. They would take on different voices and personalities. It would be so interactive and engaging--and maybe you could even have the entire class on it somehow. Like everyone would have their own part?
I'm rambling--I also have not read this book so maybe this particular idea would not fit. I'm unsure. But I do like what you've said. I have already added this book to my overly long reading list!
Emily,
ReplyDeleteGreek mythology holds a special place in my heart and so you have literally just pitched the best book for me. When I say that Greek Mythology is my baby, that is not a joke, if I birthed a daughter instead of a son her name would have been Persephone.
I have taught Greek Mythology in my field placements before, and I must say that one of the most difficult things to get across to students is the idea that these stories vary from source to source because they were told orally for years and years and years until good ol' Homer came along and wrote those suckers down. So this idea that Helen isn't really the Helen we think she is, is very smart. It is showing yet another angle to the story.
In class I mentioned briefly Euripides' Helen. This is an ancient Greek play that takes a twist on the original tale. Basically, Euripides straight up mocks the religion and the war and said "no really? you guys believed that? that's dumb" but the play is also very funny (which isn't something you often think of, because we only think about GREEK TRAGEDY).
When Mariah points out that a play aspect could be another way to teach this book, I absolutely agree. Greek plays have actually been translated into modern English that is much easier to follow than Shakespeare. Translators have essentially taken classic literature and made it low vocab, high content for you for free.
I actually made a few of my own handouts to give to kids for an introduction in Greek Mythology that I always carry in my resource folder. Remind me in class and I will gladly give you copies for your own resource folder (if you don't have such a folder yet, you will, I promise).
Excuse me while I run to the bookstore gleefully.