We’re reading The Giver right now. Most years this is the first book I make them read mostly at home. After reading The Outsiders and The Midwife’s Apprentice and Maus almost entirely out loud in class and demoing to them how to do this, I usually cut them loose on The Giver and go old […]

I know I am probably behind the curve on this one, but since we just finished The Giver, it was big news for my classes and me. The long-awaited movie version will actually be a reality. August 15th is the date it is scheduled to hit a theater near you. Jeff Bridges, who was the […]

You thought I was dun fer, as ol’ Huck might have said. But as the late, lamented Mrs. Krabapple used to say, HA!  To paraphrase Sir Mixalot… Baby, I’m back. As you can probably tell from the title, we are reading The Giver right now. And they are digging it. You know how it goes […]

We’re about eight chapters into The Giver. They can’t cope. Just like always. Usually I don’t do a lot of  “prereading prep” when we do novels. I prefer to dive right in and sort of explain/let them figure things out along the way. I think too much prep biases them or raises expectations or whatever. I […]