Moving Right Along

Hello Fellow Readers!
We are chugging along here! Hopefully, you are enjoying our reading a little bit!

It is not surprising to me at all that many students as of late are annoyed or disliking Chris McCandless at this point. In the past, I have had parents tell me that once you have your own kids, it is next to impossible to forgive Chris and his actions.

We spend this week diving into Krakauer's past and then into his journey to the bus in Alaska. The students will be finishing the book by the end of this weekend. Here are some things to think about :

- Could anyone other than Jon Krakauer have written this book? Would it have been a significantly different book if Krakauer did not have the affinity for McCandless that he does?

- What would an alternative have been for Chris McCandless - where he still might have achieved what he wanted to achieve - without meeting death?

Keep reading and I would love to hear your thoughts on the blog! Please comment on other people’s responses too. Let’s dialogue. http://parentreadalong.blogspot.com/

Happy Reading!
Travis Rother

Email from Parent

Hi All!
I wanted to share this email that I received from a parent doing the read-along (with her permission).

"Mr. Rother,Thanks for encouraging us parents to read along with our kids. 'Into The Wild' is difficult to put down. Yes, I love nature, but not as much as McCandless. I don't understand the mind set of these guys and their 'one with nature' adventures. After reading Chapt. 8, it almost seems like it's innate. You are born with this. Some of the characteristics of some of the men give red flags to autism and asperger's too, especially the social isolation, but they are typically rule bound and McCandless was not. Anyway, this has been very interesting to say the least. I see that there is a movie too, produced by Sean Penn, and I plan on watching it with the girls. GREAT BOOK!

Thanks,Amie(Annah and Steph Anderson's mom)"

Into The Wild Welcome

Welcome Parents!

I am excited to have SO many parents joining us with our first Parent Read-Along for the book Into the Wild.

Using the Blog:Feel free to start a conversation on the blog. You may post questions, leave comments, or just read what others have to say (although I encourage you to POST). You may need to create a blogger/google account in order to post, but I encourage you to do so.

This Week:- We will be reading chapters 8 through 13 of Into the Wild this week. - In class, we have been looking at people who make the choice to live on the fringe of society. We have looked at living "Off the Grid" and we will meet the inhabitants of Bullhead City in this week's readings. - The biggest question students are asking me now is "Why does Chris cut ties from his family?" For most of our kids, this is a little unfathomable (especially giving away such a large trust fund), and I am not sure they are fully grasping yet how totally unhappy Chris was with the "middle class" lifestyle of his family. What would it take for someone to be so unhappy that they would give up everything for a new life?

Enjoy the reading this week!

Travis Rother

Finishing Up!

Hi All!

I have been a little quiet on here and I apologize for that! This is a CRAZY time of year!

We are finishing up The Kite Runner next week (students are finishing in the book for Wednesday). I hope you have enjoyed reading along with your child.

We will be spending some time looking at the idea of atonement in the next week, as well as beginning a group research project that will look at the region of Afghanistan and the importance of trying to understand the complexities of this area of the world.

Thanks again for reading along!

Travis Rother

Through Chapter 16

Hi Parents!

I sure hope you are enjoying The Kite Runner as much as most of the kids are. This week, we really focused on the region of Afghanistan and the Muslim religion. Here is one of the websites that we spent some time looking at in order to learn more about refugees and the instability in Afghanistan. It is an excellent resource!

http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home

Next week, we will be reading through Chapter 16 of the novel. We are moving into the middle portion of the book that really focuses on Amir and Baba as refugees/immigrants in America. This is an interesting glimpse into the life of legal immigrants, especially those from the Middle East. We also get Khaled Hosseini’s attempt at a love story amidst this powerful book about atonement.

I encourage you to post your thoughts on this book to the parent read along blog at http://parentreadalong.blogspot.com/. If you need help posting here or if you need to be re-invited, feel free to email. I would love to help.

I appreciate you reading along with your children.

Thanks

Travis Rother

English 10

Welcome Kite Runner Parents!!

Hello Parents!

I hope you are enjoying The Kite Runner. Your students will be reading through chapter 8 this week (Page 100).

This first chunk of reading brings us the infamous rape scene (chapter 7). I think it is incredibly valuable to discuss this with your child and it is one of the great aspects of these parent read alongs. We will be spending a lot of time in class on Friday discussing and breaking down this moment of the book, but it is valuable for you to have dialogue about it at home also. We will spend a lot of time with this book talking about POWER and this plays into the rape scene prominently!

Of Mice and Men

Had read Of Mice and Men many years ago. I had completely forgotten about the supporting characters and the tone of the book. I really liked reading it again. Sad story, but like all of Steinbeck's books, an important snapshot of the human experience.