Final Reflective Learning Narrative

One book that I personally believe the children in the U.S. should read is one of the very first books we read, “The Little Hen.” I picked this book because of the lesson that came along with the assignment. I believe that the children could learn the very same thing. No matter how the story is told the ending is still the same! It does not matter what kind of animals the story had or if the Hen’s children ate the bread or if it was bread instead of cake. The moral of the story was that the other animals learned their lesson. They learned that if they could not help out to make the food that they will not eat the food they did not help with. I think this is a very important lesson for children to learn. If they learn to help and that when they help they will receive the benefits of helping that is great. It is a real easy book for children to read and understand the message of the book itself. Using animals is a key factor for children because that is what really draws children into a story and makes them want to read it.

I enjoyed several of the books this semester but my personal favorite was “American Born Chinese” but, I also like “Aya Life In Yop City.” I liked this book the best because of the message the book gave and how well it was told.I also am a huge sucker for culture and I love to learn about new cultures and see life from a different perspective and this book definitely did that. I was not a big fan of graphic novels because I was never used to reading them. I never went out of my way to read something like a graphic novel. I wanted to challenge myself this semester with the graphic novels and step out of my comfort zone. This year has been all about new experiences in life so I went into this semester with an open mind trying to challenge myself daily.

This semester has helped me grow in my knowledge of culture and new literature that I have not thought twice about before or the deeper meanings to them. It is important to learn about other people and their ways of life and this class really helped teach me that. I also get the importance of children nowadays coming to a new area from a different culture and how teachers need to be aware and know how to help them and make them feel welcomed. I can’t wait to be able to take this new insight this class gave me to my future class and be able to help all types of students.

Reading cultural texts is important and I think it is important other people read them as well because people need to understand that we are all not raised the same way and that we all have out own cultures. We need to learn and be understanding of one another. If we can all learn to get along and not judge someone because they are different than us we as a community and society will grow and thrive.

I also learned that just because it says it is a children’s book does not mean it the message within the book is strictly just meant for kids! Just like the lesson in “The Little Hen.” The Hen did not reward the other animals because they did not do their share of the work. When the animals learned this and wanted pieces of the bread/cake they chipped in and helped because they all wanted to share the reward that came with helping.

This semester definitely has impacted me as a person. I have never done online schooling before and I am sure many other students haven’t either. It was just extremely hard because I am not good with computers and it was a learning process trying to figure out how everything works online. I prefer a face to face conversation because I think feelings and thoughts and questions get lost in translation over a computer. Yet this has taught me to force myself to get more familiar with my computer and learn how to adapt to such situations life throws at us.

I did enjoy this class, not to say that I did not have my fair share of troubles with this class but I figured it out and enjoyed the readings. I like how it was all different types of reading from all round the world in this class. This was a very enjoyable class and the books were fun to read especially being stuck inside my house all day and getting to sit down and read something new, that I may not have picked out myself at the library. I enjoyed getting to learn more about the world and all the culture within it!