Emily+H


 * Book Summaries**:



Name: Emily Hoeller

1. Book Title: __Free? Stories About Human Rights__

2. Author:  Several; collaborated by Amnesty International

3. Date of Publication: 2009

4. What is the book about? Give brief plot summary in your own words. This book is a collection of short stories that highlight the importance of the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Each story is different; some are written as poetry, some as folklore, some as realistic fiction, some seemingly biographical. Each is written in such a way to bring to light the importance of our individual rights as human beings. They also show that, while each human being has these rights, there are still too many places throughout the world that strip people of these basic rights. Here are a few summaries of some of the individual short stories.

 "Klaus Vogel and the Bad Lads" by David Almond is about a group of boys that, at the prompting of an older teen, go around town and do 'bad' things without getting caught. However, the stunts the older teen expects begin to get more extravagant and troublesome. The boys don't want to seem uncool but are afraid to stand up to their leader. When Klaus Vogel moves to town, however, he teaches the boys a lesson in freedom and how to stand up for what is right.

"After the Hurricane" by Rita Williams-Garcia is a narrative poem about a group of kids living in the aftermath of a terrible hurricane. These kids need water to survive, as do their families, and so the kids set out to get it, because it is rumored there are water trucks coming in on the highway for the hurricane victims. On their way, they see the devastation of the hurricane and describe the cramping hunger and aching thirst they are experiencing. Also, they know they must be cautious and on the look out for law enforcement, who is attempting to stop people from looting. Sadly, those providing aid for the victims seem to be more concerned about following protocol and stopping looters and criminals that they aren't seeing the needs of those right in front of them.

"Christopher" by Eoin Colfer is about a boy named Marco who works in what is essentially a sweatshop with several other children, stitching logos onto clothing. The children are expected to work quickly and work hard, and are constantly monitored and scolded if they aren't displaying solid 'work ethic.' One of the other boys working, Christopher, is Marco's friend. Christopher is always getting into trouble, and Marco worries that Christopher will either be fired or worse, that the bosses will break his spirit. However, one day, Marco discovers Christopher is not who he seems to be, and Marco's own spirit is nearly destroyed.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000080; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">5. How could a teacher use this book in the classroom? What instructional strategies might you choose to incorporate with this particular title? <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I think this book would be great to use as a way to introduce the importance of respect for one another, no matter what, because we are all humans and therefore all have certain rights. It would open the door to great discussion about injustice that exists in the world and what we can do to end such injustices.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One way I could use this book would be in my Social Studies classes as we begin studying World Geography. I would select one or two of the stories at the beginning of each new unit that would correlate to the area of the world we would be studying at that time. In some areas, it would serve as a history of that particular country and we would study and discuss how the country has changed in light of the treatment of the people there. In other areas, it would serve as a current events lesson about the people living in that part of the world, and I would have the students do further research about the injustices that exist there and perhaps complete projects sharing what they learned and how they would propose to make a change for the better for the people there.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I could also use this book to enhance our religion lessons. Because I teach at a Catholic school, some of what we talk about in Religion has to do with social justice and loving care for all of God’s people. Using this book, I would assign each student or pair of students a story, and have them read it and talk about the related article of the UDHR. Then, I would assign each student or group of the Church’s social teachings and have them write a story that, like in this book, shows the importance of that particular teaching.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000080; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">6. Write three higher level thinking questions that you might use in a culminating discussion of this book. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> 1) What is the most important article of this Declaration and why do you think so? <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> 2) What would you add as article 31 to the Declaration and why? <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> 3) Do you agree that every human being should be afforded these basic human rights? Why or why not?



<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #000080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**1. Book Title:** Wish You Were Dead

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #000080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**2. Author**: Todd Strasser

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #000080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**3. Date of Publication:** 2009

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**4. What is the book about? Give brief plot summary in your own words.**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Madison is a senior at an upper class high school. She is friends with many students in the ‘popular’ group, though she tries to be friendly to everyone. Not all of the popular kids extend the same kindness to others. In fact, a few of them are cruel and demeaning to those outside of their social circle. One of the ‘unpopular’ students, unidentified to the reader until late in the book, writes a blog post about how awful Lucy is and how they wouldn’t mind if Lucy were dead. A few days after this posting, Lucy goes missing. This is a shock for the wealthy, idyllic town. Meanwhile, Madison receives anonymous emails and notes, warning her that she and her friends are in danger. A few days after Lucy goes missing, the same blogger writes about Lucy’s boyfriend, Adam, and another girl, Courtney, both popular kids and both who treat the blogger as though they don’t matter. Soon after, Adam goes missing, and a few days after that, so does Courtney. The police only have one major lead, a young man no one knew that came to a party and was asking questions about the missing kids. Madison, however, begins to suspect a new student at the school, Tyler, who seems to be hiding things from her. She also believes there is a connection with the school program Safe Rides, where students from the school can call for a free ride home, because both Lucy and Adam went missing after using Safe Rides, and because Tyler is on the Safe Rides team.


 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">5. How could a teacher use this book in the classroom? What instructional strategies might you choose to incorporate with this particular title? **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As a teacher of younger students, I would not use this in my classroom. However, I do think it would be a great book to use with high school students. If I taught students that age, I would use this book paired with lessons on respect for one another and the lasting impact that bullying can have on others. I would also use it to show the dangers of cyberbullying and to teach that once something is on the Internet, it can never be erased. Another way to use it would be to encourage forms of community service, and to discuss the benefits of a program such as Safe Rides.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One instructional strategy I might use is debate. I would have the students research programs such as Safe Rides and debate their effectiveness. Another idea would be to bring in a presenter from the Anti-Defamation League and have that person share about cyberbullying, then have the students present projects on ways to prevent such things from happening to them and their peers.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**6. Write three higher level thinking questions that you might use in a culminating discussion of this book.**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1) Compare and contrast the characters Madison and Lucy, and explain how this characterization helped form the story. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2) Create either a new ending for the story or a new character that would alter the outcome of the story. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">3) Did you agree with Madison’s decision to help Ethan? Also, judge whether or not Ethan should have acted the way he did.

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**1. Book Title: ** Book Camp

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**2. Author: ** Todd Strasser

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**3. Date of Publication: ** 2007

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**4. What is the book about? ** Give brief plot summary in your own words.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Garrett, a high school student, is kidnapped in the middle of the night. As it turns out, the kidnappers were not kidnappers at all, but employees of Lake Harmony, a boot camp for misguided teens. They were hired by Garrett’s parents to take him to Lake Harmony, where they hoped he would come to recognize that the things he was doing were unacceptable. Garrett doesn’t think that what he was doing, having a relationship with a teacher 8 years his senior, was inappropriate. At Lake Harmony, Garrett endures excruciating physical abuse and is often ridiculed and humiliated by staff and older students. The camp is intended to indoctrinate each and every student to believe that they are in need of repentance and that only 100%, unquestioning, unwavering obedience to their parents is acceptable. Garrett has always been very intellectual, and he realizes that is exactly the camp’s main goal. At first, he tries to defy them by defending his actions and he is forced into TI, or temporary isolation, and must lie facedown on a concrete floor for days at a time. He tries to fake submission, but is caught in traps to prevent such things. The abuse gets worse as time goes on, and Garrett begins to see why some students do eventually give in to the ‘brainwashing.’ However, there are two other students at camp, Sarah and Pauly, who are of the same mind as Garrett; they refuse to submit. Instead, they hatch an incredibly dangerous plan to escape. Garrett, realizing there is no other option but giving into the camp’s terrible ways, decides to take part in the escape.


 * <span style="color: #365f91; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">5. How could a teacher use this book in the classroom? What instructional strategies might you choose to incorporate with this particular title? **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This book could be used in a lesson about child abuse, human rights, and intellectual freedom. In the story, the students at the boot camp are completely stripped of any and all rights and freedoms they once had. I think it would make for very interesting discussion on at what age these rights and freedoms should be in place.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Another way to use this would be as a springboard for a current events research project. Boot camps for behavior modification have become more prevalent in the past several years, and it would be interesting to have the students research such programs and their effectiveness.


 * <span style="color: #365f91; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">6. Write three higher level thinking questions that you might use in a culminating discussion of this book. **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1. Do you agree with Garrett, Pauly, and Sarah’s decision to run away? Why or why not? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2. Compare and contrast Mr. Sparks and Joe and their roles at Lake Harmony. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">3. Rewrite the ending of the story, changing the outcome of at least one of the characters.



<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">1. <span style="color: #244061; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">Book Title: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;"> Artichoke’s Heart

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">2. <span style="color: #244061; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">Author: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;"> Suzanne Supplee

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">3. <span style="color: #244061; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">Date of Publication: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;"> 2008

<span style="color: #244061; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">4. What is the book about? Give brief plot summary in your own words.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">Rosemary Goode is a heavy-set teen who finds her happiness in sweatpants and candy bars. She has always struggled with her weight, and has learned to cope with all situations by eating. The constant reminders of her weight from her classmates have left her withdrawn and lonely. The constant pleadings of her mother and aunt to do something about the weight only discourage her further. After gaining more than ten pounds in two weeks over Christmas vacation and having nothing left to wear but a snug pair of sweatpants, Rosemary decides it is time she makes a change. As she experiments with dieting, she manages to step out of her comfort zone in other areas and befriends a popular, skinny girl, Kay-Kay. She also attracts the attention of the handsome guy in study hall, Kyle. Through her new found relationships and some changes in her relationship with her mother, Rosemary learns some important lessons about love.

<span style="color: #244061; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">5. How could a teacher use this book in the classroom? What instructional strategies might you choose to incorporate with this particular title?

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">This would be a great way to introduce healthy eating and the dangers of fad dieting. After learning about what a well-balanced diet looks like, I would put the kids in groups and assign each group to research a fad diet, then compare it to a healthy eating plan and present the results to the class.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">Another thing I think would like to try would be to have a lesson comparing eternal selves to interior selves. We would talk about what our external selves look like – what we choose to show the world and what we hope the world will see in us by the view we give to them. We would then talk about our interior selves and the insecurities that are there which can often times force our external selves to be facades. Then we would analyze Rosemary, Kay-Kay, and Kyle, comparing their internal and external selves, as well as discussing the similarities and differences between each of the character’s insecurities. Finally, I would have the students create artistic representations of these two sides to themselves.

<span style="color: #244061; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">6. Write three higher level thinking questions that you might use in a culminating discussion of this book.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">1. Explain the role of Mrs. Wallace in Rosemary’s story. How might Rosemary’s experience been different if Mrs. Wallace not been present? <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">2. Rosemary refers to Emily Dickinson as “the perfect (although admittedly slightly cliché) poet for lonely fat girls.” Find the poem Rosemary refers to in the story, “Hope is the Thing with Feathers,” and two other Emily Dickinson poems. Using the three poems, support or argue against Rosemary’s position. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">3. Describe a scene in the story where Rosemary’s thoughts differ from her actions. Why do you think this happened?

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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">1. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">Book Title: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;"> The Year We Disappeared

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">2. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">Author: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;"> Cylin Busby and John Busby

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">3. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">Date of Publication: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;"> 2008

<span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">4. What is the book about? Give brief plot summary in your own words.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">John Busby, a hard-working police officer, devoted husband, and loving father to Cylin Busby and two other children, had his life turned upside down when he was shot in the head on his way into work one night. Though he lived through the shooting, John’s life and the life of his family were forever changed. The man suspected of John’s attempted murder was a well-known criminal, but one who had too many contacts inside the police force to ever be tried or convicted of his many serious crimes. Because John lived, he feared that his family would be targeted, and over the course of the following months, he, his wife, and his friends on the police force went to great lengths to protect the family. This included having round-the-clock police officers as extra security, installing an alarm system on the home, training Mrs. Busby and the kids how to use a gun, building a six-foot tall wall as a fortress around their home, and purchasing a guard dog trained to attack anyone but John. They share their story by alternating chapters between Cylin’s retelling and John’s, with Cylin bringing in the unique perspective of what it is like as a child, living in fear and losing her childhood, and with John, expressing the anger, resentment, frustration, and sadness he experienced through his recovery. All the while, John works to bring justice to his shooter.

<span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">5. How could a teacher use this book in the classroom? What instructional strategies might you choose to incorporate with this particular title?

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">One thing I would love to do is use this in a lesson on perspective and point of view in writing. Having Cylin and John recount the same events shows the reader how even when describing the same situation, our own experience of the events will define our perception. I would have the students write about an experience they have had with their family, then I would ask their parents to write about the same experience from their point of view. We’d compare the stories and talk about the similarities and differences between the two accounts.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">Another way to use this would be in a lesson on the difference between justice and revenge. At first, John only wants to get revenge on his shooter. However, as time passes and John sees what his family is dealing with, he simply longs for justice. It’d be fun to have the kids discuss what they felt would be just in dealing with the shooter, and perhaps using the subject for a mock trial setup.

<span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">6. Write three higher level thinking questions that you might use in a culminating discussion of this book.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">1. Explain which author you preferred more, John or Cylin. Why do you feel this way? Did you like how the book was written by the two authors? Why or why not? <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">2. List as least three questions you would like to ask either John or Cylin if given the chance, and explain why you would as those questions. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">3. Is everything in the book based on fact, or do the authors provide opinions? How can you tell the difference between what is fact and what is fictional? If there are parts you suspect are fiction, describe them and why you believe they are fictional.