Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis: A Story of A Childhood

By: Marjane Satrapi

“One can forgive but one should never forget” (Satrapi, 2003, p. 2)

Genre: Nonfiction, Graphic Novel, World Literature, Memoir

Lexile Level: GN380L

Summary: Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Her story is told through black and white comic strips. During her life in Tehran between the ages of six and fourteen, Satrapi saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the success of the Islamic Revolution, and the effects of war with Iraq. She tells of her childhood experiences through comics. The result is an extremely personal, political, and original story of growing up. It shows the reader how we carry on in the face of adversity and introduces us to a little girl we can’t help but love.

Please click here to view my selling tool, an infographic on Persepolis.

Standards:

AASL: 1.1.1 Follow and inquiry-based process in seeking knowledge in curricular subjects and make the real world connections for using this process in own life.

1.1.7 Make sense of information from diverse sources by identifying misconceptions, main and supporting ideas, conflicting information, and point of view of bias.

Common Core Standards: CC.8.R.I.1 Key Ideas and Details: Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

CC.7.R.I.2 Key Ideas and Details: Determine two or more central ideas in a text and analyze their developments over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.

Learning Goal: Students will compare and contrast the comic strips of Persepolis to photographs of the Islamic Revolution. Students will write a journal entry portraying the thoughts and feelings of a child living in Iran during this time.

Learning Objectives:

1. Students will compare and contrast the text of Persepolis to the historical events of the Islamic Revolution.
2. Students will assess the comic strips of Persepolis and find three comics that relate to three real photographs from the Iranian Revolution using pictures from this website.
3. Students will write a journal entry from the point of view of a child living through the Islamic Revolution in Iran. They will describe the feelings, worries, and daily life of someone living at that time.

Learning Outcome:

1. Students will be able to identify the real-life events that Satrapi describes and draws in her comics to actual photographs from the revolution.
2. Students will write a journal entry describing the thoughts and feelings of a child living during this time.

Maria had a little llama = María tenía una llamita by: Angela Dominguez

Title: Maria had a little llama = María tenía una llamita 

Author/Illustrator: Angela Dominguez

Award: Pura Belpre Honor Book - Illustration Honor (2014)

Lexile Level: 390L

Recommended for

Age: 4-7 Years

Grade: Pre School to Second Grade

Summary

In August 2013, this picture book was published as a bilingual book, which possesses the words in both English and Spanish. This book is based on the nursery rhyme called "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

This picture book received a Pure Belpre Honor for its illustrations in 2014. Honors and its award is given to books that demonstrate "presented to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth" (About the Pura Belpré Award).

This book has colorful gouache-and-ink illustrations that depict Maria's life. Students will be excited to learn about the culture of Peru, through its geography, landscapes, and clothing as well as to learn words in Spanish. This text encourages readers to read the story in English and read its Spanish translations. In addition, students will connect the colorful illustrations to a different way of life and culture in society abroad.

Learning Standards

"5. With guidance and support from adults, demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

a. Sort words into categories (e.g., colors, clothing) to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent. " (New York State P-12 Common Core Learning Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy; Language Standards K–5)

Learning Goals

Students will demonstrate their understanding and comprehension of the meaning of words through identification.

Learning Objective

Students will identify words and learn comprehension in the meaning the words in English and Spanish, respectively, which are shown throughout this picture book.

Learning Activity

This activity will focus on students receiving worksheets with words in both English and Spanish, similar to what was shown in this book. For example, the word "llamita" is shown with a picture to represent the words "little llama".

In addition, students will learn to recognize words relating to weather such as snow ('nieve") and colors such as white ("blanca") to describe the llama. This activity is to reinforce the meaning of words and learn comprehension of colors. This activity allows students to learn words in Spanish as well as can be used as a learning activity for ESL students.

        Learning Outcome

Students will identify and understand the meaning of words in Spanish, which shown in the book titled Maria had a little llama = María tenía una llamita by: Angela Dominguez.

Selling Tool: Poster

References

        ALA Pura Belpre Award. (2017, February 17). About the Pura Belpré Award. Retrieved September 21, 2017, from http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/belpremedal/belpreabout

        Dominguez, A. N., & N., D. A. (2013). Maria had a little llama =: Maria tenia una llamita. New York: Henry Holt & Company.

        Maria Had a Little Llama / María Tenía una Llamita - Make Way For Books. (2017). Make Way For Books. Retrieved 18 September 2017, from http://makewayforbooks.org/maria-had-a-little-llama-maria-tenia-una-llamita/

 M    Mid-Hudson Library System -- Maria had a little llama = María tenía una llamita. (n.d.). Retrieved September 18, 2017, from http://search.midhudsonlibraries.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2058129__Smaria%20had%20a%20little%20llama__Orightresult__U__X6?lang=eng&suite=cobalt

       New York State P-12 Common Core Learning Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy. (n.d.). Retrieved September 17, 2017, from https://www.engageny.org/resource/new-york-state-p-12-common-core-learning-standards-for-english-language-arts-and-

Growing Up with Tamales by: Gwendolyn Zepeda

Title: Growing Up with Tamales by: Gwendolyn Zepeda

Author: Gwendolyn Zepeda
Illustrator: April Ward 
Spanish translator: Gabriela Baeza Ventura

 


Lexile Level: 480L

Recommended for:
Age: 3-7 Years
Grade: Preschool to Second Grade

Summary:

The book titled Growing Up With Tamales by: Gwendolyn Zepeda. This text is Gabriela is a bilingual text, both in English and Spanish It was translated into Spanish by Baeza Ventura and illustrated by April Ward. 

The book focuses on a six-year old girl named Ana, who looks forward to growing older, because she wants to have more responsibilities in helping her family make tamales for Christmas. A tamale is a traditional Mexican dish that is made out of dough from cornmeal that chopped meat is added into the dough. The dough is wrapped in a corn husk and is tied, before it is steamed.

Ana is the narrator and she tells the audience what she can do at different ages and what responsible she can have at that age. The ages that is described within this book includes at ages 6 years old, 8, 10 and 12. 

Learning Standards

"5. Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action."

"7. Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot."

"11. Make connections between self, text, and the world around them (text, media, social interaction)."

(Reading Standards for Literature K–5; Grade 2).

"2.3.2   Consider diverse and global perspectives in drawing conclusions." (AASL).


Learning Goals

• Students will identify the story elements of the text (e.g. setting, plot, characters) and discuss the importance of the sequence of events in the process of learning to make tamales. 
• Students will identify and compare the responsibilities that Ana and her sister Lidia, gain as they grow older.
•  Students will be introduced to multiplication by learning to count in twos.

Learning Objectives

•       Students will identify story elements  (e.g. setting, plot, characters) from the text titled Growing up with Tamales by: Gwendolyn Zepeda. (Cognitive)

•     Students will identify the ages represented in the story are multiplicatives of 2,    

 through the text. (Cognitive)

Learning Activity

This activity will focus on students identifying story elements. The ages that is described within this book includes Ana at ages 6 years old, 8, 10 and 12. In addition, students will learn words that are used for comparison such as "too thick and not too thin.”(Zepeda 4). This displays counting in twos, which will be utlized to introduce the introduction of multiplication. Students will use handouts that will possess visuals, in which. A rubric will be used to assess this activity.

Learning Outcome

Students will gain knowledge in basic multiplication, comparison words through vocabulary, and successfully identify the story elements in the book titled Growing up with Tamales by: Gwendolyn Zepeda.

Selling Tool

Poster

References

AASL. (2017, May 12). Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. Retrieved October 2, 2017, from http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/guidelinesandstandards/learningstandards/AASL_Learning_Standards_2007.pdf

Zepeda, G., Ward, A., & Ventura, G. B. (2008). Growing up with tamales = Los tamales de Ana [PDF version]. Retrieved October 05, 2017, from https://mhls.overdrive.com/mhls-eastfishkill/kids/media/553902

Mid-Hudson Library System --Growing up with Tamales. (n.d.). Retrieved October 2, 2017, from http://search.midhudsonlibraries.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1848585__Sgrowing%20up%20with%20tamales__Orightresult__U__X7?lang=eng&suite=cobaltt

New York State P-12 Common Core Learning Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy. (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2017, from https://www.engageny.org/resource/new-york-state-p-12-common-core-learning-standards-for-english-language-arts-and-literacy