For the Love of Snoopy

Day 9 of #BTBC14
Share about your special furry family members- your pets!

     My husband conned me into getting my furry family 11 years ago, by using my love of Snoopy to win my heart over.  I have always been afraid of dogs, so having a pet was the last thing on my mind. Then, after a year of marriage, I started finding pictures of cute little beagles all over the house.  Then, one day, my husband made me go with him to the pet store to see this beagle that was just sooooooo cute. As we got in to the car, he said that we could name it Snoopy.  An hour later, we had a new furry friend.  Snoopy has always been my first kid.

     In keeping with the literacy focus of this blog, I thought I would share the Shiloh poster my husband made about 10 years ago.  I am not a huge fan of the novel, but the main character is a beagle.  Enough said?

     One set of Snoopy texts that I LOVE are the original comics by Charles Schulz.  It gives me the chance to talk about the word "text" and what it can mean in our classrooms.

According to Richard Nordquist at about.com, text is:

Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy say that text is:

     The next time you open the common core standards and see the word text all over the place, in phrases like "close, attentive reading of text" or "quote accurately from a text" or "refer explicitly to details and examples in a text" think about the texts it might be referring to.  Song lyrics, copies of speeches, political cartoons, comics, diagrams, cereal boxes, etc are all texts.  I like to also include visual texts, like photographs and paintings in my definition.  

     Back to Snoopy...

     Looking at these three texts, can you come up with a character trait to describe Snoopy, using specific details from the text to support your answer?  

      I can, but I will refrain from answering, because I would like to see what you think.  Respond in the comments with your thoughts.  Remember, there are no wrong answers when your thinking is supported!  

     Just think about how this lesson would go over in your classroom compared to teaching the same lesson using a standard paragraph.  The kids won't even know they are reading because you are using a comic strip, but in reality you would be covering Standards 3, 7 and 9 of the ELA standards.  AND you would be introducing them to the Peanuts characters.  Who needs more motive than that?

*All comics found at gocomics.com