A Guide for Using My Brother Sam Is Dead in the Classroom


Book Description

A literature unit for use with "My Brother Sam is Dead," featuring sample lesson plans, pre- and post-reading activities, a biographical sketch of the author, a book summary, vocabulary lists and activities, chapter study guides with quizzes and projects, book report and research ideas, and options for unit tests.




An Instructional Guide for Literature: My Brother Sam Is Dead


Book Description

Encourage students to make connections to historical events by completing fun, challenging activities and lessons provided in this guide created to support this novel about a family torn apart by the American Revolution. This instructional guide for literature is filled with appealing and rigorous cross-curricular lessons and activities that work in conjunction with the text to teach students how to analyze and comprehend rich, complex literature. Everything you need is packed into this guide and is the perfect tool to teach students how to analyze story elements in multiple ways, practice close reading and text-based vocabulary, determine meaning through text-dependent questions, and more. This is the perfect way to add rigor to your students' explorations of rich, complex literature.




My Brother Sam Is Dead


Book Description

The classic story of one family torn apart by the Revolutionary War All his life, Tim Meeker has looked up to his brother. Sam is smart and brave, and is now a part of the American Revolution. Not everyone in town wants to be a part of the rebellion. Most are supporters of the British, including Tim and Sam’s father. With the war soon raging, Tim knows he will have to make a choice between the Revolutionaries and the Redcoats, and between his brother and his father.




My Brother Sam is Dead, by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier


Book Description

Literary novel unit contains story summary, initiating activities, comprehension strategies, discussion questions, vocabulary, predicting, summarizing activities, graphics, writing, bulletin board, and art activities.




Teaching Banned Books


Book Description

As a standard-bearer for intellectual freedom, the school librarian is in an ideal position to collaborate with teachers to not only protect the freedom to read but also ensure that valued books with valuable lessons are not quarantined from the readers for whom they were written.




A Guide for Using Johnny Tremain in the Classroom


Book Description

Teaching literature unit based on the popular children's story, Johnny Tremain.







Number the Stars: An Instructional Guide for Literature


Book Description

Use this guide to follow the story of ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her Jewish best friend Ellen who must move in with the Johansen family and pretend to be their daughter to escape the Nazis. Number the Stars: An Instructional Guide for Literature provides rigorous and appealing cross-curricular lessons and activities that work in conjunction with the text. Readers will learn to connect historical events to this story, analyze story elements in multiple ways, practice close reading and text-based vocabulary, determine meaning through text-dependent questions, and more. Add rigor to your students' explorations of this Newbery Medal-winning novel.




The Rock and the River


Book Description

Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe Award winner In this “taut, eloquent first novel” (Booklist, starred review), a young Black boy wrestles with conflicting notions of revolution and family loyalty as he becomes involved with the Black Panthers in 1968 Chicago. The Time: 1968 The Place: Chicago For thirteen-year-old Sam, it’s not easy being the son of known civil rights activist Roland Childs. Especially when his older (and best friend), Stick, begins to drift away from him for no apparent reason. And then it happens: Sam finds something that changes everything forever. Sam has always had faith in his father, but when he finds literature about the Black Panthers under Stick’s bed, he’s not sure who to believe: his father or his best friend. Suddenly, nothing feels certain anymore. Sam wants to believe that his father is right: You can effect change without using violence. But as time goes on, Sam grows weary of standing by and watching as his friends and family suffer at the hands of racism in their own community. Sam beings to explore the Panthers with Stick, but soon he’s involved in something far more serious—and more dangerous—than he could have ever predicted. Sam is faced with a difficult decision. Will he follow his father or his brother? His mind or his heart? The rock or the river?




A Very Fine House


Book Description

When Letty Marquez discovers an elegant-but-decrepit Victorian mansion not far from school, she and her friends decide to keep it a secret and make it their own. As the Vietnam war escalates, the nation reels from protests, riots, and a drug epidemic. Letty and her friends pit themselves against forces that want the land beneath the house. At the same time, boys, friends, and permissive American culture constantly clash with Letty's Mexican upbringing and her Catholic religion. In A Very Fine House by Rose Molina, we experience the turmoil of an era where political awareness and social change engulf the lives of young people struggling to come of age. Interwoven in this difficult phase of life, culture clashes exacerbate the struggle in the search for an identity. The story sheds light on these complex issues with both humor and warmth.