Hi welcome back to my blog! In Sydney and I’s research blog, our book we talk about is “Blubber,” by Judy Blume. This book is based on a girl who notices a common problem in today’s world, bullying. This book is significant due to the problem kids have in today’s society. The book is aiming for elementary school students, specifically 4th-5th graders. “Blubber,” aims not only to entertain children, but to teach them a valuable lesson. Teaching this book, a tool we think that is useful and most helpful is a powerpoint with videos and questions following the book. This project is a way to engage children in an entertaining, yet valuable lesson that can challenge them to think about the deeper meaning of bullying and the real effects it has. It will be a way to challenge their own intelligences besides the ones Blume has used, such as interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences.

The main goal of this project is to engage children and teach them a valuable lesson where they can challenge themselves and reach a greater potential. “Blubber,” is a very straight forward book to read, but the lesson beneath it is something that children might miss. In the book, Jill sees the bullying and feels bad for the other girl. What kids might miss is that Jill doesn’t feel bad that the girl was bullied, but that Jill sat back and did not stand up her when she saw it happening. The intelligences displayed in this book include interpersonal and intrapersonal and we are aiming for the students to pick out the intelligences in the book, but also find how they relate to themselves. The powerpoints, videos, and reflective questions will help the students think deeper and possibly even see the problem Jill faces. Our goal is to challenge the students where they will notice the deeper meaning in the book.

For our project, we plan on finishing our tools we came up with. We will finish our powerpoint, which pinpoints main events in the book, explaining intelligences which will engage the kids to better understand them, and finish the questions that correlate with the book. We aim to find a way for the students to identify the intelligences after in their lives. The questions will challenge the students, looking at the deeper psychological meaning of the book. A video will also be presented that shows Gardner’s Intelligences in a simple way that the students can understand and also try to connect it with the novel.

Creating a powerpoint that goes along with Judy Blume’s, “Blubber,” will help the kids visualize and understand the book better. Gardner’s Intelligences video will get the students to understand the intelligences in a different way and it is also more interesting to them to watch a video rather than only understanding the definition. “Blubber,” is a great book that will teach kids the valuable lesson of bullying. Bullying is shown in the book in a way that children will follow along easily and will understand the lesson and hopefully deeper meaning by the end of the book.

McCormac, M. (2014). Preventing and Responding to Bullying: An Elementary School’s 4-Year Journey. Professional School Counseling,18(1), 1-14. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/profschocoun.18.1.1

Bullying is a problem in elementary schools today that we think students should learn about. This article talks about the bystander effect, which is when someone sits back and sees something and does say or do anything. This goes along with our book for the project. It also talks about bullying reports and a survey that has been done in schools about bullying. We read that their are different races of children that suffer worse than others and how it has affected them. A main point in the article is that children’s literature is effective and can prevent bullying in schools, which is our goal for our research project.

Blume, J. (1974) . Blubber. Scarsdale, NY.: Bradbury Press.

The children’s novel, “Blubber,” by Judy Blume is what our project is based off of. This book teaches the readers a valuable lesson about not only bullying, but about speaking up when someone sees something wrong. The novel is an academic resource based of of the lesson, but also a popular source. It would be a popular source due to the lesson it teaches in an entertaining, yet informative way. “Blubber” is a great, impactful book for all elementary grades, but specifically 4th graders. The students would have to read the book and answer our reflective questions in the powerpoint to help guide them understand another meaning of the book and to identify Gardner’s Intelligences in the book and their surroundings.

Baumen, Sheri, Jacobsen, Kristen E. (2007) “Bullying in Schools: School Counselors’ Responses to Three Types of Bullying Incidents.” JSTOR. (11, No. 1)

This journal article touches upon bullying in elementary schools and how often it occurs. It states in the article that bullying used to be seen as “child development,” but now it is looked as unfortunately common, serious problem in elementary schools. In the article, a study takes place where school counselors focus on what bullying is and how to reduce it in schools. The research consisted of students who were also participants, who told their counselor about the bullying incidents they were involved in. In the research being done, we are able to see the method and procedures the researchers do to test what children do when they feel they have been bullied.