Using Photography to Tell a Story

One of my courses this semester is Electronic Media and Design - it's an EDU (vs. LBS) course, and it basically covers ways to effectively communicate through images. It is one course where my Marketing background has come in handy - I've done my fair share of presentation creation, that's for sure!

This week's assignment centered on photography, and telling a story using pictures. One of our choices was to do a "how-to" feature, such as in a recipe. As an avid recipe blog reader (shout out to 2 of my faves, Skinnytaste and Emily Bites), I hadn't ever tried my hand at actually photographing food. It's harder than it looks!

So without further adieu, here's my inaugural attempt.

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With the first truly chilly weekend, what better way to kick off fall than with a warm, hearty soup? Found just the candidate I was looking for in my new favorite cookbook and settled in for some (hopefully) delicious French onion soup.

Kicking things off with (lots) of onions, butter and olive oil

Caramelizing those suckers...saute, saute, and then saute some more.

Adding a lot of liquid to the mix

While the soup simmers, some Asiago-Parmesan crisps for topping

 

Cheesy, oniony goodness is served ... Bon appetit!

 

Cheesy, oniony goodness is served! Bon appetit!

What I'm Reading: October 2014

After my YA binge this summer for my Children's Lit course, it's been a little slow going on the reading front, but now that I'm in the swing of things with my classes, new school schedules for the kids, and so on, I am ready to get back at it!

My book club book this month is The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer, which I just recently finished. It was, surprise, surprise, another one picked up from the Parents' Picks shelf at my local library, but I had also remembered one of my Goodreads friends reviewing it a while back. I have a soft spot in my heart for summer camp - which features pretty prominently in the story - but this one fell a little flat for me. It was certainly readable, and I liked Wolitzer's style, but the characters didn't quite do it for me. There's another one by her that seems pretty applicable to my stage in life - The Ten Year Nap - which I might check out soon.

For my YA pick, I am finally reading If I Stay, and will likely follow it up with Where She Went (damn Gayle Forman...there's no way I can *not* follow up with the companion book right away!). So far so good on this one - certainly very readable and have a feeling there may be a tear or two shed before all is said and done!

New semester

Hooray! I'm actually not commencing another semester-long break from blogging, even though it's not required for either of the classes I am taking this fall. Progress, for sure.

My two classes this semester are EDU classes (vs. LBS) so not as interesting to blog about but I am doing some library volunteering that has me pretty excited.

In my home school district, there isn't budget for an elementary librarian, so all five elementary libraries are parent-run. Which, coincidentally, is a good opportunity for an elementary school parent looking to become a librarian.

I'll be helping out with my daughter's K class (mostly checking in and out books, and choosing a book to read aloud), but another way I'm helping is through a really cool program called the Massachusetts Children's Book Award (MCBA).

In a nutshell, this program was designed to continue momentum for reading for upper elementary students in the hopes that it will carry them through middle school and beyond. It essentially culls a list of 25 books - across genres, targeted to all levels of readers - and encourages students to choose at least 5 to read between now and March. Those students who read all 5 (or more) will be eligible to attend a special breakfast event at the school and vote on their favorite.

I attended one of the kick off meetings for a 4th grade class this morning and it was awesome. The kids were SO excited about the program (helped by the strategic reading of some introductory sentences of a few of the books by my fellow volunteer - a very effective form of booktalking) and eagerly waited their turn to peruse the special shelf designated for the program. I'm looking forward to seeing which books are the most popular, and hopefully reading a few myself.

Another highlight were the questions they had after our spiel - apparently they really want French toast and waffles brought in - I'm glad we have a few months to hone our breakfast menu!

What I'm Reading: Popular YA Books

It's the final week of my class and our theme this week is "What Teens are Reading Now" - while the obvious answers are Fault in Our Stars and Divergent, I figured I'd try to delve a little deeper to get some ideas for my recommendations this week. I also solicited two of our teenage babysitters so it will be interesting to see how their recommendations align (or not!) with what I find on my own.

Two great lists that helped me this week were Mashable's 12 YA Books for Your 2014 Summer Reading List and Teen Vogue's The 15 Most Exciting YA Books Coming Out This Year (don't judge...I actually found the Teen Vogue list to be a pretty thorough and thoughtful one...who knew?).

I predict I'll be reading much more YA in the coming months...there are so many books that I have come across that I can't wait to dive into!

What I'm Reading: Nutritious Books

What's a Nutritious Book, you ask? Simply put, a YA novel that a teacher could use as part of their curriculum, supporting Common Core standards, etc. As an adult reader, I actually have loved some of the ones I have come across this summer...it's great to feel like I'm actually learning something as I'm reading, and many of them have given me a much greater understanding of a time period or event that I didn't know (or let's be honest, remember) much about before.

ELA and History are definitely the predominant teachers who might be inclined to use YA novels to support their classroom activities, and as it turns out, all of my picks this week have some sort of historical basis. I have to cheat a smidge and include one of the books that I included on one of my midterm reading lists, because I just loved it so much (as much as you can love a Holocaust book, I suppose!). In fact, I really enjoyed three of my recommendations from that list, so I'm including the other 2 as Honorable Mentions, as I didn't think I could get away with recycling all three of my picks!

So, here we go...Nutritious Books for your reading (or teaching) pleasure:

What I'm Reading: Geeky and/or Scary Books

This week is my least favorite genre...and honestly a bit of a letdown after my required romance reading last week! "Geeky" is essentially science-fiction and fantasy (a bit tongue-in-cheek, I think, by my professor) and Scary obviously speaks for itself. Our course this summer is one week shorter than when it runs in either the fall or spring semester, so we were able to choose either Geeky or Scary for the week's assignment. Since my assigned book was in the Geeky category (More Than This by Patrick Ness), I decided to be consistent.

In searching for my books this week, I tended to gravitate towards ones that I might actually be interested in reading. I figure this category is the easiest to get boys interested in so I let myself off the hook. In the comments kicking off our module this week, our professor advised not to shy away from series. Which is good, because all of my choices (unintentionally) are parts of a greater set.

Here we go...

What I'm Reading: Romance Books

Ah...teen romance novels. Call it listening to too much Taylor Swift, or actually having mostly positive memories of high school (boys included), but I loved this week's genre. Interestingly, I couldn't remember any romance/love stories that I loved as a teen reader but I devoured three of my picks in a matter of days this week. I started off my exploration by searching "Popular Lists" on my nook and quickly found a Contemporary YA Romance list with 53 titles to sift through. My neighboring library has a much larger YA section than my local one, and I got lucky finding two of my top picks there as well as finding another one on display. I suspect I may be checking out a few more of these once my class is over and I can get back to leisure reading!

As in previous weeks, I tried to find at least one title that (might) appeal to a teen boy, though this genre was a little more difficult. Per usual, in no particular order...