Bronx Masquerade

This book was definitely not what i expected it to be, but I really enjoyed it and I think my future students would feel the same way. What i really liked about the book was the face that each student got to give their own story, and descriptions were not just given by other students. For example, Porscha was described as this crazy girl that will beat anything up that look at her wrong. But she is then given a chance to tell her side and find out that the story is a little bit different than people say. I think this is a great way to show students not to believe everything they hear and to not pass judgement so quickly. They will learn that every student has a voice.
I also liked the "Ain't I Fine" article. I never really stopped to think about different codes of communication. Ironically, I started reading "Sam and the Tiger" in my field placement the other day before reading this article. I was pleasantly surprised when this article talked about the book. I was only able to skim parts of the book, but it had very bright pictures and definitely grabbed my attention. I did happen to read the part about the sunglasses and I found it quite funny because his parents' comment is totally something that my parent would have said to me. My family is incredibly sarcastic and we joke around with eachother all the time. It was not until reading the article that this banter was actually a common African-American communication code known as signifying. Although neither I nor my family are African-American, I was able to relate that particular part of the story to my own ways of communicating to my family and helped me to enjoy the book even more.