Jennifer Smith

  Why American Born Chinese Works as a Graphic Novel By Jennifer Smith One of the most distinctive features of American Born Chinese is its use of the graphic novel format to tell multiple stories that intersect and converge in surprising ways. The graphic novel format allows the author, Gene Luen Yang, to create a rich and complex narrative that explores the themes of identity, culture, and belonging from different perspectives. In this blog, I will analyze how the graphic novel format affects the narration of Jin Wang's story (and the story of others) in American Born Chinese, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of this mode of storytelling. Jin Wang is the main protagonist of American Born Chinese, and his story is told in a realistic and chronological way, following his struggles to fit in as a Chinese American boy in a predominantly white school and society. The graphic novel format enables Yang to show Jin's emotions, thoughts, and experiences through both wor

  Monster: Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mode By Jennifer R Smith As readers, we all have different preferences when it comes to the way we consume information. Some prefer the traditional format of a book, while others may enjoy a more visual experience, such as a screenplay. In the case of Walter Dean Myers' novel Monster , the protagonist, Steve Harmon, a 16-year-old African American teenager is on trial for his alleged involvement in a robbery and murder. Myers chose to draft the story in two different modes: a journal that Steve writes while he is in prison, and a screenplay that he writes to depict the events of the trial and his life before the crime. These two modes of presenting information to the reader create different reading experiences, different information, and different reader connections with Steve and his story. According to the article, “What did she see?” The White Gaze and Postmodern Triple Consciousness in Walter Dean Myers’s Monster by Tim Engles and Fern Kory, Monste

Smile! You’re On Candid Camera By Jennifer R Smith   In the dystopian world of The Hunger Games , where children are forced to fight to the death for the entertainment of the Capitol, being on camera is a constant reality for the protagonist, Katniss Everdeen. From the moment she steps into the arena, she is aware that every move she makes is being broadcast to the entire nation of Panem. This awareness has a profound impact on her actions and choices throughout the novel. One of the most significant ways in which being on camera affects Katniss is that it forces her to be more strategic and calculated in her behavior. She knows that every move she makes will be scrutinized by the audience, and so she must be careful not to reveal any weaknesses or vulnerabilities that could be exploited by her opponents. For example, when she first enters the arena, she immediately takes stock of her surroundings and begins to strategize: "Sixty seconds to taking the ring of tributes all equidist

  The Reality of Magic By Jennifer R Smith One of the most important aspects of writing effective fantasy is to create in readers the "willing suspension of disbelief." This means that the readers are able to accept the fantastical elements of the story as plausible and coherent within the fictional world, even if they contradict the laws of reality. own experiences, feelings, and imagination. In this blog post, let’s analyze how Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling creates a story that I as well as millions of other readers around the globe, were willing to enter into, suspending disbelief during the reading experience, by creating a magical world, establishing rules and limitations, and by introducing relatable characters, despite the fantastic nature of the story's events. The first way that Rowling achieves this is by introducing the magical world gradually and through the perspective of Harry, who is also new to it. The story begins with a

  Unfinished Business  b y Jennifer R. Smith The characters in the book Holes are haunted by the past and have to deal with the consequences of their actions or their ancestors' actions. According to the article “Haunting and History in Louis Sachar’s Holes,” by Kirsten Mollengaard, the central theme of the book is the need to finish unfinished business in the past in order to bring about closure in the present. Mollengaard states that the image of the ghostly Sam pulling his beloved mule Mary Lou along the desert as seen by Stanley on his way to Camp Green Lake, in the movie version, serves as a metaphor for that unfinished business. Sam was a kind and gentle man who helped the people of Green Lake with his onion remedies and his handy skills. He also had a forbidden romance with Katherine, the schoolteacher, who was white while he was Black. When their relationship was discovered by the townspeople, they burned down the schoolhouse and killed Sam in a brutal act of racism and

A Comprehensive Approach to RTI: Embedding Universal Design for Learning and Technology                 Let’s face it most educators consider themselves lifelong learners. The passion teachers for teaching are strongly related to the passion for learning. Therefore, teachers are always researching new learning activities that are meaningful for their students when they are trying to grasp new concepts. These new and meaningful activities should provide positive results for all students, despite learning need or disability. The article, “A Comprehensive Approach to RTI: Embedding Universal Design for Learning and Technology” discusses how teachers can effectively help their students, specifically their special needs students. The authors believe that Response to Intervention (RtI) should include universal design for learning (UDL) which helps the students by “proactively planning for instructional, environmental, and technology supports” that give students the opportunity to become more