Sonya's Teaching Blog

Cover of Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas' Red: A Haida Manga . Image care of chapters.indigo.ca Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas is often credited with the creation of the "Haida Manga" genre of graphica, and Red  is one of his most well-known works. It tells a classic Haida cautionary tale of pride and revenge in a very visual style. What's more, the pages of the book can be removed and put together to build a mural (though readers will need two copies of the book to do this properly). Mural made of pages from Red: A Haida Manga . Image care of Huffington Post . Yahgulanaas encourages readers to take the book apart for this purpose, and as much as it hurts me to take books apart, I think this is required to really appreciate the art of this book. When read in a linear fashion, some of the book feels out of order or like bits are missing. The extra connections made between pages complete the picture, and the story. And I think students would love the opportunity to ta...

Reading in the sunshine is the best! Image from Reading is Fundamental ( www.rif.org ) It is well understood in our society that reading is an important skill to develop. Not only do we use it for entertainment or important documents, but it is an important part of our education system. In fact, reading for fun can improve a student's educational performance . So how can we encourage students to read more? I am a firm believer in modeling the behavior we want to see. In my life, I have heard many people declare that their love of reading began with a read-aloud in school. For older students, we can model just by reading in front of them. Working as a teacher on call, I have exposure to methods used in several schools. At one high school, there is a daily 20 minute period of silent reading every day observed by the entire school. During that time, I would also pull out a book to read, showing that it is a fun activity that will stay with you. It is also important to meet s...