Written by: Patricia MacLachlan
Jacket Illustration by: Amy June Bates
Margaret K. McElderry Books, New York, New York
Lexile: 490L
Accelerated Reader: 1.0
Pure, Familial, Heart Warming, Poetic, Gentle
Suggested Delivery: independent
Electronic Resources to Support Reading:
1. North Dakota
This site provides students with general information and interactive activities about North Dakota, where Lucy and her family go to visit and help Aunt Frankie with her farm during the flooding season. It will help students gain better understanding of where Lucy's family travels to and what the state is like.
This site provides a biography of Patricia MacLachlan's life and lets students into her inspirations behind her stories. A big part of the biography is dedicated to her love for family and the importance of strong familial ties, which will help students understand the value of the family bond in Fly Away.
Key Vocabulary:
- raucous - loud, disturbing, noisy
- Dutch Belted - cattle (cows) that are normally black with a big white stripe around the middle
- Holstein - cows with black and white color patterns
- Guernsey - cows with orange/red and white color patterns
- triumphal - used in a great celebration or victory
- mosey - to move in a leisurely, slow, relaxed manner
Before Reading: Students will complete an Anticipation Guide before reading Fly Away. Students will observe the front and back covers and listen to the description on the jacket of the book in order to form hypotheses about the story they are about to read. After all students independently fill out the Anticipation Guide, have a class discussion on each question and allow children to share their predictions and why they think certain events will or will not happen, are true or untrue.
During Reading: After students finish reading Chapter 10 independently, we will complete a CLOSE reading of the chapter as a whole class. This chapter is a very highly emotional chapter in which Teddy wanders away his mother on the farm, and the whole family frantically runs around trying to find him. The first half of the chapter evokes a feeling of panic and terror as Teddy is nowhere to be found, while the second half of the chapter brings a feeling of relief and calmness once Teddy is found again. The turning point is when Lucy begins to sing aloud because Teddy is always drawn to Lucy singing, even though it pains Lucy to sing aloud in front of her family and she and Teddy's singing is their own personal secret. Students will be led through a teacher led discussion to analyze the passage closely: the different feelings and emotions that are felt throughout the chapter, the importance of the song Teddy and Lucy sing to each other throughout the book, but how much more important the song is now, and the melancholy feelings of Boots towards the end of the chapter, although he is obviously relieved his son is now safe.
After Reading: Students will work with the other students at their groups to discuss and analyze which character changes the most from the start to the end of the story: Lucy, Teddy, Boots, Lucy's mother, or Aunt Frankie. Students will collaborate and discuss with each other why and how these characters developed and changed, and what events caused them to change by the end of the story. After the collaborative conversations are over, groups will choose a Reporter to report their findings to the rest of the class about which character changed the most and why.
Writing Activity: Students will construct a Response Writing piece after finishing reading the story. Students are to compare their own family dynamic to that of Lucy's in Fly Away. Are there any similar family members in the student's family to those of Lucy's family? Which character can they most personally relate to and why? How is Lucy's family different than their own family?
No comments:
Post a Comment