Journal #5: Discussion Reflection

How did you feel about Ms. McDowell moderating the discussion and you as a class leading it? What went well and what could be improved? Do you have any suggestions for next time?

What was the most interesting part of the discussion for you? What did you learn? What new ideas do you have as a result of the discussion?

Journal #4: The Influence of Homophobic Comments

In sticking with our prior topic, how do homophobic comments affect the people around them? How did the homophobic comment from our last reading affect Thom's coach? Do you think his coach recognized that he was influenced by that comment? Why or why not?

How do homophobic comments affect you? Are you aware the damage? If so, what does it cause you to think or do? If not, why do you think they may not affect you?

Remember each of your entries needs to be PROOF READ for capitalization, content and spelling and the response should be a minimum of 15 SENTENCES.

Journal Entry #3: The damage of homophobic comments

In today's reading "the Gary Colman look-a-like" made a very hurtful and homophobic comment to Thom. What was this comment? How did it damage Thom? How did it affect the the rest of the people in Thom's life (his father, his coach, his teammates, etc.)?

Have you ever had a hurtful comment made to you? How did it affect you long term? Other than just making you angry at the moment, did it cause other peole to look at you differently? If so, how?

Please write a minimum of 15 sentences.

Journal Entry #2: Getting to Know Thom

So Thom is our protagonist in this story. What have we learned about him so far? What are some challenges and struggles he faces in his daily life? What are some challenges and struggles that you have in common with him?

It is important early on in a story to start making predictions and inferences as to what will happen next. Let's look at what we already know and have that guide us towards making a guess about what will happen.

Journal Entry #1: Examining our own differences

How are you different from other people? How do you respond to people that are different from you? Can you identify and extreme manifestations of conflicts between people because of their differences? What might those differences be? Please give examples!

HERO IS THE WINNER!

After meeting for the first time yesterday, and putting it to a vote, our book club decided to read the book Hero. This is a story about a young man who has super hero powers and is marginalized by society because he is gay. Through reading this book, discussing its themes, reading additional articles and blogging we hope to better understand and empathize with some of the challenges gay individuals face in our society. We also hope to develop the capacity to be more understanding and tolerant with people who are different from us in general

Our essential question for the unit will be: How can we learn to put ourselves in other people's shoes so we can be more understanding and empathetic?

Welcome! Post inspirational reading quotes!

Welcome to our new blog! We are a group of students from the Lower East Side. We have combined our love for reading and our love for technology to create this awesome site. It is our hope that through reading and blogging about what we read and discuss, we will become stronger readers and hopefully inspire other students to become stronger readers as well.

You can help us out! Do you know of any inspirational reading quotes? If so please post them to our comment box below!

Thank you so much and we look forward to this awesome journey!