1. Dr. Catherine Kurkjian Central Connecticut State University Dept. of Reading and Language Arts RDG 588 Teaching Children’s Literature Section 71, spring 2005, 6:50 PM

2. Author Pegi Deitz Shea visited our class on the evening of our literature circles to discuss her books The Whispering Cloth: A Refugee’s Story and its sequel Tangled Threads. She gave our class an insider’s view on the development and background of the writing of these amazing books. We viewed slides of her trip to Thailand and the refugee camp in which part of the story takes place. Pegi shared artifacts from the story including a Hmong storycloth, a pa’ndau, that is integral to both books. The class shared their literature circle response projects and Pegi shared interesting asides about aspects of these powerful books.

3. Sue, Nicole, Amy and Kimberly created an amazing ABC PowerPoint presentation that addresses aspects of the Tangled Threads from A to Z along with quotes from the book to illustrate what is being portrayed for each letter of the alphabet. Click on link to view. Then chick arrow to view other proejcts. ABC PowerPoint presentation

4. This literature circle group created character bookmarks for their response project. Each member (from left to right-Jill, Lynne, Marie, Danielle and Sally) selected a different character and provided an insightful analysis of the character they chose along with their personal connections.

6. Adrienne, Mary, Tami, Stephanie, Julia, Tricia told a pa’ndau sequenced story chronicling Mai’s Journey from Thailand to the United States.

7. Each member of this group selected aspects of the book to compare and contrast. They created compare/contrast collages backed on woven fabric. Mike compared traditional Hmong women to American women. Mai is in the center crossing both sides. Mike chose to include a picture Pamela Anderson on the American side of the chart. Jenny compared and contrasted Mai to her grandmother Lisa compared/contrasted Mai’s relationships in Thailand/Laos to those in the United States Holly contrasted life in America to that in the refugee camp in Thailand Megan compared Mai in the refugee camp to Mai as she is in the United States.

9. Visit Pegi’s Website for more information on her wonderful books. Visit The Hmong Home Page at http://hmongnet.org http://hmongnet.org