When The Teacher Isn't Looking: And Other Funny School Poems

Nesbitt, Kenn. When The Teacher Isn't Looking: And Other Funny School Poems. New York: Meadowbrook, 2005.

Kenn Nesbitt is a well known poet, especially for his poetry collections including When The Teacher Isn't Looking: And Other Funny School Poems. He has written seven books of children's poetry. This book contains numerous humorous poems that cover topics in schools including detention, homework, tests, and school lunches. Teachers can use these stories as an intervention to the student's fluency or to introduce curriculum topics.

Resources to Support the Text

Poetry and Word Games

This website provides the students with interactive games that the students can play that are educational. The students can choose from creating their own free verse poems to poetry word searches. This website might be a good tool in the classroom to use as a positive reinforcement and award the privileges to use it based on if the students have deserved it.

The Basics of Poetry

On this website, the students will receive a brief introduction on the elements of poetry. They will learn what poetry is, different types of figurative language, the tone of the poem, rhythm and meter and patterns. This site is very user friendly and easy to navigate for the students. It provides great examples of poems elements that can be identified in the poems in the book When The Teacher Isn't Looking: And Other Funny School Poems.
Key Vocabulary

Cafeteria, detention, principal, sharpen, ancient, nightmares, Roman, Greek

Reading Strategy

During reading, the students can engage in Split-Page Notetaking. On one side of the paper, the students can write down elements of poems such as imagery, metaphor, personification, simile, symbolism, allegory, irony, the tone, rhythm, and meter while on the other side of the paper write down specific examples of these that can be seen in the text that correlate to the terms that they previously learned.

Writing Activity

The students will write their own poem that specifically relates to a topic related to school.

A Friendship for Today

Mckissack, Patricia C.. Friendship For Today. New York: Scholastic Press, 2007.

A Friendship For Today was honored as the Teacher's Choice in 2008. In 1954 after the Supreme Court outlaws segregation in schools in Missouri, sixth grader Rosemary enrolls as the first African American into an all-white school. Throughout the year, Rosemary constructs troubled friendships, one with her neighborhood enemy Grace Hamilton who comes from a highly racist family. Through the support of adults and an injured kitten that is rescued, Rosemary learns the value of tolerance and perseverance. The author incorporates several historical references into the text including the Civil Rights Movement and the Polio epidemic.

Resources to Support the Text

Brown vs. Board of Education.

This website provides the reader with information about the Brown vs. Board of Education case that led to the desegregation in schools in certain regions. The students can be become familiar with the Supreme Court case, the parties involved, where it took place, the ruling and other information that relates to the text in the book.

Photos of the Supreme Court Decision

This site provides the students with additional pictures that illustrate the beginning of the historical event. The students are able to get a better idea of what exactly happened through viewing the photographs. This website also provides newspaper articles that specifically deal with the Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education that the students can view and analyze.

Key Vocabulary

Segregation, prejudice, polio, Civil Rights Movement, stereotype, Brown vs. Board of Education, integration, tolerance, perseverance

Reading Strategy

Before reading the text, the students can complete a KWL as a whole class. They can brainstorm what they already know about the Civil Rights Movement, questions that they want to know from reading the text and then after reading the story finish filling in the chart with what they learned.

Writing Activity

Why is J.J. and Rosemary selected to enroll into Robertson School while the rest of their classmates are sent to different schools?

March On!: The Day My Brother Martin Changed The World

Farris, Christine King. March On!: The Day My Brother Martin Changed The World. New York: Scholastic Press, 2008.

March On!: The Day My Brother Martin Changed The World won the Teacher's Choice in 2009. The story is told from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s older sister. She addresses questions including how the activist prepared for his famous speech and what the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963 was like. This unique perspective that the story is written from allows the reader to focus on the march and the morning of the speech. The author's use of color and larger front puts emphasize on the important aspects in the story.

Resources to Supprt the Text

Martin Luther King Jr. and The Civil Rights Movement

This website is a great tool for the students to use to navigate and explore the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It provides a biography of the activist, a timeline showing the events that have happened during his life that correlate to the civil-rights movement, a study guide for the teacher to use with the students and photo galleries. The students can use this website to learn more about the life that Martin Luther King Jr. lived.

March On! The Day My Brother Martin Changed the World... and More Stories About African American History-Scholastic DVD

This short film is an inspiring DVD that shares an important message. The film illustrates photographic footage from the historical events and enhances the classroom lessons through exploring the wrongness of segregation and promoting the acceptance of others. The first story in this film is of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech in Washington D.C. followed by other stories of prejudice and  events of African American segregation including Rosa Park's story. The film provides an accurate depiction of the facts and information that is really beneficial to the students learning. The DVD can be viewed after the students have read the book, allowing them to visually watch about the historical event that they previously learned about in the text.

Key Vocabulary

Protest, equality, nation, nonviolence, liberty, march, Washington DC., dignity, racism, civil rights, boycott

Reading Strategy

During reading, the teacher can perform a read aloud. In the text, there are phrases that are printed in larger font and color and pictures that illustrate the historical event. While reading the book aloud, the teacher can model to the students how to read with fluently, placing emphasis on the important aspects of the text.

Writing Strategy

How would Civil Rights in the United States be different if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did not write and perform his "I Have A Dream" speech in Washington D.C.?

The Importance of Wings

Friedman, Robin. The Importance of Wings. New ed. Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge Publishing, 2009.

The Importance of Wings is a story about an Israeli-American girl named Roxanne (Ravit) Ben-Ari. The main character and her family live in New York City in the 1980s. While her mother is way in Israel, her father works late into the night as a cab driver in Manhattan. Afterschool, thirteen year old Roxanne and her younger sister fend for themselves in cooking dinner and managing to get their homework assignments done. Roxanne is embarrassed by her Israeli name (Ravit), her father's clothes and thick accent. She longs to fit in with her schoolmates as an American. Lait, another Israeli girl, moves into the "cursed" house next door and teaches Roxanne to be unconcerned and gives her a fresh perspective to view her appreciation of her family and cultural lifestyle with. This easy read coming-of-age story addresses common issues in immigrant American children.

Resources to Support the Text

Note From the Author

This website provides the students with a short interview with the author. Robin Friedman talks about the setting for the story and why she chose to it to take place in the 1980s. By better understanding why the author chose the setting and time period that she did for the setting of the story, the students will be able to comprehend how people of different nationalities were treated at this point in time. The author describes one of the main reasons that she chooses the 1980s in New York City as the setting because of her ability to relive her own memories in her youth in her writing.

Israel Culture

This website gives the students basic background information about the culture of Israel. The students will learn about the location, geography, linguistic affiliation, food customs, family, education, religon, economy, ceremonial occasions, political life and social welfare. Through providing the students with this information, they will be able to better understand the culture that Roxanne comes from and make connections between the text and the information that they have learned on this website.

Key Vocabulary

Torture, murderous, Hebrew, nonexistent, awful, busted, curse, Israeli, situation, estate

Reading Strategy

Before reading the story, invite an Israeli guest speaker in the classroom. Have the speaker share with the class their culture and their customs. The students will become familiarized with this firsthand experience about the people who originate from Israel.

Writing Activity

If you were a classmate of Roxanne's, how could you make her feel comfortable and confident in her Israeli culture?

Elijah of Buxton



Curtis, Christopher Paul. Elijah Of Buxton. New York: Scholastic Press, 2007.

Elijah is a eleven year old boy who is the first child born into Buxton, Canada as a free person. From his first person perspective, Elijah tells his story of Buxton which is a settlement where runaway slaves fled to. Elijah is described in the story as being both courageous and understanding while journeyning into the United States to retrieve a thief while first hand meeting slaves that have made it to Canada and slaves that have been caught in the process. On his trip that keeps the reader on edge, he witnesses the unimaginable horrors of the life that his parents once lived and his emotional rage that goes with it.

Resources to Support the Text

Elijah of Buxton Book Trailer

This website is a short video featuring the author Christopher Paul Curtis. He takes the reader on a short tour of Buxton, Ontario where the Underground Railroad ended. He says that the first time he saw this place; he was inspired to write the book Elijah of Buxton. He shows a house that is similar to where Elijah and his family of five would have lived and what their world would of looked like. This clip will visually aid the students in seeing on a map where Buxton is located along with pictures of slavery that were taken during the time period of the book.

The Journey of the Underground Railroad

This website is an interactive tool that allows the students to endure on a journey on the Underground Railroad as if they were a slave escaping slavery. The website provides short scenarios, captions and pictures that describe the journey that the slaves underwent when escaping. Harriet Tubman leads the exploration while the students must decide if they are ready to endure on the dangerous trek.

Key Vocabulary

Scar, branded, rebuking, eavesdropping, irrestible, barbarian, exaggerate, plantation, berserk, speculating

Reading Strategy

During reading, the students can construct their own concept maps. They will be able to chart out Elijah's and Mr. Leroy's dangerous journey from Buxton, Canada to America on their pursuit to find the Right Reverend Zephariah W. Connerly the Third, who has stolen the money that Mr. Leroy, has saved to buy his family out of slavery. As the students are reading the text, they can fill in this graphic organizer as they go mapping out their pursuit.

Writing Activity

Have the students write a letter to Frederick Douglass from Elijah's point of view. In the letter, direct the students to write about how Elijah's experience as the youngest conductor on the Underground Railroad changes his life and relate his experience's to those of Douglass'.



Freedman, Russell. Children of the Great Depression (Golden Kite Awards (Awards)). New York: Clarion Books, 2005.

Russell Freedman was honored in 2006 as the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children for his book Children of the Great Depression. Freedman provides the reader with a clear outline of the time period that the book explores that is straightforward to read. He touches upon the stock-market crash as well as including voices of people who lived during the Great Depression. In the book, he covers the causes of the Depression, work life, migrant work, schooling, entertainment, and the children who rode on the railways. The author conveys his message through his black and white photos that really bring home to the reader how bad the Depression was in the United States.

Resources to Support the Text

Pictures from the Great Depression

This website provides the reader with visual pictures of the Great Depression. It can be used to introduce the topic through allowing the students to see a glimpse of what the Great Depression was like for the people who endured it. In this collection, there are pictures from the Dust Bowl that farmer's crops and land and migrant workers who traveled looking for new jobs. Through the photographs, the students will be able to visually see and understand that the lives of the people who lived during the 1930s in the United States were not easy.

Great Depression Labor Map

This map illustrates the Great Depression from 1929-1939 in the United States. It specifically looks at the percentage of labor forced unemployed in the United States during the Depression. The students will be able to look at the map of the United States and compare and contrast the rates of unemployment that was forced by the Depression. There are three categories that the states are classified as in regards to unemployment percentages; more than 25, 18-24 and less than 18. This map provides a clear idea about the large number of unemployed workers that were affected by the Depression.

Key Vocabulary

Unemployment, relief program, pension, migrant worker, deficit spending, rationing, Dustbowl, tariffs, Black Tuesday

Reading Strategy

Before reading the text, invite a guest speaker that lived during the Great Depression in the 1930s to come into the classroom. Let the speaker share information about the Depression, how it affected their life and how it was to live in the United States during this time.

Writing Activity

Did the Great Depression suffering that Americans endured in the United States weaken or strengthen family relationships?

Amelia Earhart: The Legend of the Lost Aviator

Tanaka, Shelley. Amelia Earhart: The Legend of the Lost Aviator. New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2008.

In 2009, Shelly Tanaka won the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children. This is a picture book a child that contains attractive illustrations and information on the biography of the famous female aviator who fascinates Americans. It is a well written story that has a lot of text on the pages focusing on Earhart's flying journey rather than solely describing her personal life. The book contains numerous visuals that illustrate the reality of the aviators flight across the transatlantic and historical photographs.

Resources to Support the Text

Amelia Earhart Biography

This website provides the students with a biography of the first female aviator to fly solo transatlantic in 1935. The biography is sponsored from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Aeronautics Division. This website provides insight to all the women pilots that have photographs or artifacts in the museum. The site lists the contributions and participation that the women had from the earliest racing pilots to women that have gone to space. The students will be able to search biographical sketches in alphabetical order of female pilots to get a better understanding of women in aviation and space history.

Amelia Earhart's Second and Final Flight

This link is a map illustrating the route of Amelia's Earhart's second and last attempt of flight from June 1, 1937 to July 2, 1937. This map clearly labels Earhart's flight from where she took off to where to hope to land. There is a mystery behind Earhart's disappearance of is still unknown today. The students will be able to visually track the route that led to the disappearnce of a famous woman in the world.

Key Vocabulary

Atlantic Ocean, Amelia Earhart, aviator, legend, heap, shimmering, veils

Reading Strategy

Before reading the text, the students can complete a KWL chart. They can write down what they already know about Amelia Earhart and what they want to learn about her. After reading the text, the students can finish the chart with what they learned after reading the nonfiction text.

Writing Activity

It is still a mystery to this day about the disappearance of Amelia Earhart during her flight through the Pacific Ocean to the Howland Island. Explain your theory surrounding this controversial issue depicting what you think happened to Amelia Earhart.

The Giver

Lowry, Lois. The Giver. New York: Laurel Leaf, 2002.

Lois Lowry won the Newbery Medal for The Giver in 1994. The main character, Jonas, is born into an ideal world where there is no fear, pain, war, choices, sickness, unemployment, poverty or crime. When Jonas turns twelve years old, he receives special training from The Giver to be the community's Receiver of Memories. It is through the old man's knowledge that he discovers the disturbing truth about the pain and pleasures of life. Jonas must learn to examine the truth of his society and not turn back. This is an unwinding tail for adventurous readers that poses numerous questions that go unanswered throughout the tale.

Resources to Support the Text

Online Chapter Quizzes

The teacher can easily access these chapter quizzes that guide the reading of the students. The quizzes are broken down by chapters of the book and are in multiple choice formats. The teacher can distribute these quizzes to support the students learning after they have completed reading chapters to check there comprehension and understanding. If the quizzes show that particular students do not understand certain concepts mentioned in the chapters, then the teacher can go back and re-teach the chapter or have the students re-read it for context. This website also provides activities to reinforce what the students are learning that correlate to the text.

Interview with Lois Lowry

This link is a short video interview with Lois Lowry. This video can be shown when the teacher is introducing the text before the students begin reading it. Lowry talks about her award in winning the Newbery Medal and reveals her influences behind her ideas, the main character and events that took place in the novel. This video is a great comprehension tool to build and support the student's background knowledge about the text and author before beginning reading.

Key Vocabulary

Apprehensive, meticulously, prestige, palpable, commotion, obsolete, transgression, exuberant, hueless, nurturer

Reading Strategy

After reading, have the students complete Poems for Two Voices. Pair the students in the class together and allow them to compare and contrast life of the people in the community in the book to life in their personal community. This will build on the student's comprehension through letting them construct meaning from the text about the community that Jonas lives in and comparing it to their own life. The students will need to look back into the book for specific examples and details about the community.

Writing Activity

The ending of The Giver can be interpreted in several different ways. Use information from the text to choose a possible interpretation of the ending and argue its validity.

Holes

Sachar, Louis. Holes. New York: Yearling, 2000.

Louis Sachar won the Newbery Medal for Holes in 1999. This book tells a story about a boy named Stanley Yelnats whose family carries very bad luck that has affected him. He is falsely accused and convicted of theft. Rather than going to jail, he chooses to go to Camp Green Lake, which is not much of a camp at all. It is a juvenile detention facility that does not have a lake. Stanley quickly adjusts to being a camper once he is forced to dig holes by the warden that is five feet deep and five feet wide. Once Stanley and the rest of the boys at the detention facility realize that the warden is searching for, the book takes an unexpecting twist. Sachar writes this book with great insight, humor, voice, wisdom, and action filled scenes that force the reader to continue reading. 

Resources to Support the Text

Holes Trivia Game

This website provides the students with a trivia game that they can interact with after reading the complete text. The multiple choice game asks the students specific questions found in the text that the students must recall from their reading understanding including what season the book takes place in, what Stanley's great-great-grandfather is known as and what the boys steal while they are out digging holes. The game is quick, only fifteen questions and the students are able to check at the end the answers to their questions and make proper corrections if needed.

Holes Thinkquest

This link provides the students with an interactive website that allows them to explore Camp Green Lake. It has a map illustrating Camp Green Lake and you are able to visually see and read information about the different sections of the camp. The students are able to take what they have read in the text and visually see photographs of these locations. After exploring the map, the students can click on the different characters mentioned in the book and engage in activities to further develop and reinforce their comprehension about the text including its structure, characters, conflict and setting.

Key Vocabulary

Perseverance, desolate, hastily, defective, aimlessly, coincidence, absurd, wrden, stifling, juvenile

Reading Strategy

To increases the students comprehension after reading Holes, have the students complete response writing. Allow them to reflect on the themes that are seen in the text including friendship, accountability, discovery, learning, reading, and responsibility. Have the students comment and respond in a couple of paragraphs to at least one of these themes mentioned.

Writing Activity

Have the students reflect and write about the process that Stanley took to teach Zero how to read. Have the students view both perspectives as a teacher and student to talk about the traits that both Zero and Stanley implemented during this process. How would the book be different if Stanley did not teach Zero how to read?

Maniac Magee

Spinelli, Jerry. Maniac Magee. New York: Little, Brown Young Readers, 1999.

Jerry Spinelli won the Newbery Medal for Maniac Magee in 1991. The main character of the story is named Maniac Magee, whose real name is Jeffrey Lionel. He received this nickname from the townspeople in Two Mills because of his unique abilities to undo any type of knot, his athletic skills in hitting homeruns against the top pitchers in the neighborhood and for his quick speed in running. The story illustrates Maniac Magee's struggle as a homeless boy to find shelter while he confronts topics such as racism in his town. The audience cannot help but want Maniac Magee to feel content because he is such a caring and smart character.

Resources to Support the Text

Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site

This website provides the teacher and students with great comprehension building questions to aid in book discussions, a synopsis of the book, a breakdown of the main characters and their traits, activities that the students can engage in after they have finished reading the book that relate to the text, and additional recommended books that the children might be interested in if they enjoyed reading Maniac Magee.

Jerry Spinelli Interview on Writing Maniac Magee

This is a short video of an interview with Jerry Spinelli. Before reading the text, the students can be introduced to this video so that they can gain some background information about the text that they are about to read. In the video, the author talks about his writing process for the text, his style, the main characters, and his motivations to write the book. This will allow the students to better understand the text that they will be reading, having some prior background knowledge directly from the author.

Key Vocabulary

Orphan, pandemonium, allery, confetti, dumbfounded, repertoire, mourner, ecstatic, feats, replicas

Reading Strategy

After reading the book, the students can complete an exit slip. On the exit slip, the students must write down what they think Maniac Magee's most notable act in the story is. From teaching the old man how to read to untying Cobble's knot to aiding in reducing the gap in racism, the students must write down what they believe his most renowned act in the book was and support there answer with information from the text.

Writing Activity

Allow the students to write about how nicknames play an important part in the book, including the nickname for the main character Jeffrey Lionel. Have them describe how the characters received their nicknames and what they say about them as a person.

Terror Trips (Goosebumps Graphix)

Stine, R L, and R. L. Stine. Terror Trips (Goosebumps Graphix). New York: Graphix, 2007.


This book contains three original tales from Stine's Goosebumps series that have constructed their way into graphic-novel format. Three comic artists, Jill Thompson, Jamie Tolagson, and Amy Kim Ganter adapt these tales into their own styles as comic formats. For fans that are already familiar with the Scholastic Goosebumps Series or comics, these graphic novels  are addicting to read, shocking, good scares, have striking illustrations, and entertaining to say the least.

Resources to Support the Text

R.L. Stine Website

This website is the official site created by R.L. Stine. It provides the students with an author autobiography, a photo gallery, facts and awards that the author has earned, contact information to write questions to the author and a book list that students can use to search for new books based on other books in the series that they have enjoyed reading. After reading the text, this would be a great website for the students to visit to learn additional background information about the author and what inspired him to write his spine-chilling tales.
Goosebumps Official Website

This is the official Goosebumps website sponsored by Scholastic. This site provides summaries of each tale in the series written by R.L. Stine along with interactive games that the students can navigate to explore the text that they have previously read. The students will be able to learn more about the setting, characters and conflicts in the text.

Key Vocabulary

Admission, explosion, audience, robots, mangled, platform, creature, reaction, biologist, astounding

Reading Strategy

A during reading strategy that the students can engage in includes a Jigsaw disscusion. The class can be divided equally into three groups and each section will read a different book in Terror Trails. One group will read One Day at Horrorland, another group will read A Shocker on Shock Street, and the third group will read Deep Trouble. After each group has read their assigned tale, the class will take part in a Jigsaw discussion where each student will be filled with knowledge and ready to share information from the story that they read. The class will be shuffled so that their are groups of students that read each of the three books and they will share what their story is about and demonstrate their comprehension about the text that they have read. This will allow the students to learn information about each of the three stories in Terror Trails and decide if they want to read an additional book besides the one that they already read and shared in the Jigsaw.

Writing Activity

The students will re-write their own ending to One Day at Horrorland, A Shocker on Shock Street, or Deep Trouble. They will need to be creative and descriptive in order to construct their new ending to the tale.

Island of the Blue Dolphins



O'Dell, Scott. Island of the Blue Dolphins. New York: Yearling, 1987.

Scott O'Dell won the Newbery Medal for Island of the Blue Dolphins in 1961. The book that he shares is based on a real-life story of an American Indian girl named Karana who is twelve years old. In the 1800s, she becomes stranded on an island off of the coast of California is must learn how to survive on her own in isolation for eighteen years before deserting the island to live on the Santa Barbara.

This historical fiction novel tells a story about a young Indian girl, named Karana, who is forced to live alone on the Island of the Blue Dolphins after she is separated from her tribe. Karana must learn the skills to survive on her own including fighting off invaders, wild dogs and natural disasters. As seasons pass, Karana waits with anticipation for a ship to bring her back to her tribe safely.

Resources to Support the Text

• A thematic exploration of the text

This website integrates technology through allowing the students to actively engage in studying a historical fiction event. It provides the students with the opportunity to further explore and build their background knowledge on the different aspects of the story including the village, sea life and the island. In the village, the students are able to look at the anthropology of the Native Americans that inhibited the island. In the sea life exploration, the students are able to build on their comprehension about the wildlife mentioned in the text including the dolphins, sea otters, and squid. In the final section, the students will learn more in depth about the Island of the Blue Dolphins (San Nicholas Island) through looking at pictures and labeling on a map the different places on the island mentioned in the book. At the end of the exploration, the students will be presented with a short quiz reflecting on the information that they have learned and will receive a certificate based on completion.

• Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary

This website allows the students to virtually search and learn more about the Santa Barbara Channel, which is where the Island of the Dolphins is located. The students can become familiar with the geographical location of the story including the marine life located in the area.

Key Vocabulary

Aleuts, cormorants, abalones, intruder, scurrying, basin, headland, crevice, forbade, scarcely, enemy

Reading Strategy

Before reading, have the students do a think-aloud. Have the students predict what the story will be about after hearing the title. The students will be able to verbalize their internal thoughts and begin figuring out what the text means. These thoughts might include questions or connections to other texts, the world or their personal lives.

Writing Activity

After spending eighteen years in isolation solely forming relationships with animals, do you think that Karana would fit in with her tribe? Write a persuasive essay stating why or why not with supporting information from the book.