GET TO KNOW REBECCA STEAD
Rebecca Stead grew up in New York City, where she was lucky enough to attend the kind of elementary school where a person could sit in a windowsill, or even under a table, and read a book, and no one told you to come out and be serious. This experience helped her I fall in love with books. Specifically, she fell in love with fiction. Reading books made her think about writing. But she didn’t write a lot. Sometimes she just wrote down things she overheard – jokes, or snatches of conversation. You could probably fit everything she wrote before the age of 17 into one notebook.
Later in life, she became a lawyer because she believed that being a writer was impractical, got married, and started working as a public defender. But she still wrote stories when I could find the time.
After having two songs, there was not much time for writing stories after that. But she still tried.
One day, her three-year-old son, accidentally pushed her laptop off the dining-room table, and her stories were gone. Then she started to write something new. She went to a bookstore and bought an armload of books that she remembered loving as a kid. She read them and went back to the store to bought more books written for children. I read them and then began to write again. She says, "The most important thing to know about writing is that there are no rules"
Stead won a John Newberry Metal for When You Reach Me in 2010. She also won another award, Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, for her novel Liar & Spy in 2013.
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INTRODUCTION TO WHEN YOU REACH ME
When You Reach Me follows a sixth-grade protagonist, a girl named Miranda. She lives with her single mother who has a kindhearted boyfriend, Richard. Miranda's best friend Sal, whom she has known since she was a small child, had recently started ignoring Miranda after he had been punched in the stomach by another boy named Marcus. A homeless man lives on the corner of Miranda's street. She calls him the "laughing man" because he tends to laugh without cause. Miranda notices that he always utters the words "book bag pocket shoe." She later realizes the phrase refers to the order and place he will send Miranda notes: her library book, a bread bag, her coat pocket and Richard's shoe. The first three notes instruct Miranda to write a letter describing the future events. The notes, whose writer claims to be coming to Miranda's time to save a life, offer three signs of the truth of the messages. As the plot develops, the proofs come true, and Miranda is intrigued. In a later scene, Marcus encounters Sal. Marcus wants to apologize for his misbehavior, and chases Sal when he flees. Sal runs onto a street right ahead of an oncoming truck. Does he make it to the other side of the street? You’ll have to read to find out.
When You Reach Me follows loosely the classic novel A Wrinkle In Time. Miranda is always carrying around a book that is actually the novel A Wrinkle in Time. She reads it over and over and never chooses another book. Steads novel is a more modern, relatable version of the other novel.
This novel falls under the Young Adult, science fiction, mystery novel.
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TEACHING CHALLENGE
Understanding the context of the novel
About Body
TEACHING CHALLENGE # 2
EXPERT GROUPS ACTIVITY
In order to explore all the themes and symbols in the novel, students will split up into small, focused research groups divided by topic. They will become experts in their field, and then share their findings with the rest of the class. Each group will figure out how each theme or topic is significant to the story. Groups will have times to collaborate and work together, as well as times to research independently. Students will take turns sharing their findings, during readings sessions when it is most relevant.
Group 1: 1978 Â
What was the world like in the late 1970’s when the novel takes place?
What music and TV shows were popular?
Who was the president?
What was in the news?
What technology did people have?
What did people wear?
What did 5th and 6th graders do for fun? This group will research 1978 and 1979 through books, articles, internet searches, and interviewing people who lived through it.
Group 2: The $20,000 Pyramid
This group will research the popular game show.
How did the game work?
Who was Dick Clark?
What celebrities were on?
They will have the challenge to put together a similar game for the class to play. This game could be used as a review game for the class.
Ultimately: what is significance of including the game show in the story? Group 3: Cartographers
Geography and the neighborhood where Miranda lives plays a big role in the book. This group will be in charge of keeping track of all the streets and locations mentioned in the book and matching them up with the real geography of New York City. What is the real neighborhood like and what was it like in 1978?
Group 4: Symbols
This group will keep track of any mention of Clocks, Time, Locks, or Keys within the text of the book. How might these things be working as literary symbols within the story?
Group 5: Fear and Safety
Throughout the book, what things are specifically mentioned related to fear and safety?
What things do you think each character fears?
What things help them to feel safe?
Group 6: A Wrinkle in Time
If the class has not read this book in advance, this group will be in charge of reading Madeleine L’Engle’s novel and tracking the text-to-text references made to it in When You Reach Me, and explaining the book’s significance to everyone else.
BUILD YOUR OWN TOWN
The setting of When You Reach Me is crucial to the plot. Miranda spends very little time in her apartment during the course of the novel, choosing instead to wander the streets of her neighborhood, going to Belle’s or Jimmy’s, going to friend’s apartments, and passing the laughing man, day after day. There are places Miranda feels safe and places that make her feel less safe. Each location turns out to be significant to the unfolding of the plot in a different way and all the while, Miranda and her classmates work on building the miniature model of their neighborhood in the sixth grade class. In this activity students will be asked:
How do the places we live shape who we are?
What places in your town are important? How do we navigate as middle schoolers graders?
How are they different or similar to Miranda’s New York City neighborhood in the 1970’s?
Similar to Miranda’s class, students will work together in order to construct a miniature model of their town or neighborhood using recycled materials. Working on the model can bring up discussions such as:
How does our community compare to Miranda’s own neighborhood?
How much freedom should children be given?
How have things changed since the 1970’s?
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