Talking Points 2... again!!

For some reason this blog thing is not going well for me at all! I typed out this blog last week and it got deleted somehow.. I think it might have saved as a draft and gotten deleted. Here it is now... hopefully it all works..

"Why can't she remember that?" By: Terry Meier

I found this reading to be interesting because as a child I grew  up in a school system with practically all white children and it is nice to read articles that are about different cultural backgrounds. I think that these readings really help expand my knowledge and they introduce me to ideas and concepts that I would have never realized.

Quote 1: "Instantly adopting the sing-song intonation associated with teasing in her community, Marisa transformed her original threat into a game by playfully naming all of the family members she supposedly would hit."

This quote was interesting to me because it has to do with a little girl from a Mexican immigrant community and she is teasing her father in a way that she has learned at school and her father does not find it funny. Just when the father is getting ready to punish her the little girl quickly changes her tone into her own cultures way of teasing. The father and the family is all accustomed to Mexican culture and tradition and with Marisa going to a school where her Mexican culture is not practiced so she is catching onto other cultures and her family does not necessarily agree with it.

Quote 2: "At one point when the teacher asked, 'How many mittens are there?' Gabriela (a pseudonym, the bilingual Puerto Rican child sitting next to me, turned and asked me, in an exasperated tone, 'Why can't she remember that?'".

I love this quote! I have read the same book over and over to a group of children before because they loved the book. Sometimes when I stop and ask them a question about the book some of the children look at me and I can tell that they are thinking, 'Why can't she remember that?' Every time it is always that same answer and I think the children almost get annoyed with us because we keep asking the same questions and then when the children don't raise their hands to answer we think that they do not know the answer. In reality though, the children do know the answer and they just think that we really don't know the answer and it surprises them.

Quote 3: "'You wanna see what the book says happens? Let's see what the book says,' to which one of the children, Jeremie, responds, 'No'"

I also really liked this quote because I can relate to it. Sometimes when you are reading a book with children they get so caught up in relating it to real life or letting their imagination wander and they think of things that are going to happen next. Then when you try to get them back on track into actually finishing the book it is such a hassle and they do not want to finish reading the book. Children will always speak their mind when you ask them direct question's like this and I really liked this quote.