May 8, 2008
In A1 we had a special guest speaker -- Mr. Tom Napierski, who talked with us about his experiences as an amputee. (Grandpa Leo in Stand Tall is an amputee.) I video-taped him, so we will watch the video tape in the other classes later. The theme of his presentation (and a major theme in the book Stand Tall) is that when we lose something, instead of focusing on what we have lost, we can focus on what we still have.
Students continued to read from Stand Tall, and we continued Book Talks.
The Vietnam War interviews were due today.
Chapters 4-14
Text: The novel Stand Tall by Joan Bauer -- This genre of this novel is realistic fiction.
Reading strategies: Activating Background Knowledge, Using Q.A.R.’s, Inferring, Summarizing, Making Connections
Read these questions, and then read Chapter 4:
Vocabulary Notes:
Mediocre - adjective (page 25) means neither good nor bad; average; ordinary; commonplace.
Epoxy – noun (page 26) is a heat-setting resin used as an adhesive (glue)
1. What is the coach’s name? (Right there.) _____________________ Why do you think Joan Bauer might have chosen that name for Tree’s basketball coach? (QAR:Author and You. Inference)
______________________________________________________________________________________
2. There is a plaque on the wall in the gym that says “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Do you agree or disagree with that? Explain why. (QAR: On your own) ________
____________________________________________________
3. What inference would most people probably make about Mona Arnold when told that she was born in Ethiopia in eastern Africa? ___________________________________________________
4. On page 28, Mona asks Tree’s grandpa, “So, what have you got, Leo?” She is asking him to look at what he has instead of at what he doesn’t have. He doesn’t have two complete legs, but he can name several important things he does have. What do you have? ___________________
5. Who is Sully, and what “disability” does Sully have? ___________________________________
Read these questions, and then read Chapter 5:
6. Where is Tree as this chapter begins? _______________________________________________
7. At the top of page 33, who is speaking? ______________________________________________
8. He says, “Never be a person who wants ___________________,” and
“_______________________________________ is the only reason to ever fight.”
9. On page 37, we’re told, “Occasionally something awful, like divorce, can have a good side.” What just happened that brought up a “good side” of the divorce in Tree’s family? _____________
________________________________________________________________________________
6. What does his brother Larry call Tree? ______________________________________________
Read these questions, and then read Chapter 6:
7. Who is Conan? (“Right there”) ____________________________________________________
8. Why does Tree think his grandpa is made of “tough stuff”? _____________________________________
9. What is the prayer that Tree’s grandpa says almost every day? ___________________________________
Read these questions, and then read Chapter 7: Summarize
10. Summarize chapter 7 in the box below. Remember to keep events in the same order they’re told in the story.
11. “Tree wondered if divorce was like war and always had a lasting effect on the people who went through it.” What do you think? ____________________________________________________________
Read these questions, and then read Chapter 8
12. After reading page 50, what do you think of Sophie Santack? _____________________________________
13. Tree thinks, “Sometimes it felt like every seat in the world was saved for somebody else.” Explain what he means. __________________________________________________
14. Who is Lassie (in this story)? ____________________________________________________
15. What two jobs is Sophie considering for when she grows up. She says, “one way or the other, I’m going to take care of problems.” _______________________________________________
16. Would you like to have a job taking care of problems? Why or why not? _________________
______________________________________________
17. What is Sophie’s motto? _________________________________________________________
18. What does Tree decide is his motto? _______________________________________________
19. What is your motto? ____________________________________________________________
Read these questions, and then read Chapter 9
20. Does what Grandpa says about grenades describe a helpful way to handle it when people say cruel things? How? ________________________________________________________
What do grenades have in common with cruel words? ________________________________________
21. According to Mona, what can disabled people do? ___________________________________
22. The coach makes the Pit Bulls Basketball team sign up for _____________________________
23. If Tree could have changed one thing about himself, what would it have been? _________________________
Read these questions, and then read Chapter 10
Recognizing Parts of Speech
For each numbered word, write the part of speech each it acts as in the sentences. (Reminder: The parts of speech are noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, conjunction, preposition, interjection.)
1 2 3 4 5 6
Cars were pulling up to the entrance. Girls in dresses got out excitedly.
7 8 9 10
Boys in badly fitting suits slumped in misery toward the front door.
1. Cars _______________________ 6. excitedly _______________________
2. were pulling up ______________ 7. slumped _______________________
3. to __________________________ 8. toward ________________________
4. entrance ____________________ 9. the ____________________________
5. in __________________________ 10. front __________________________
Chapter 10, cont.
24. What is the setting at the beginning of Chapter 10? __________________________________
25. According to Sheila, “We begin dancing like we begin most new things. . .”
How do we “begin most new things”? _______________________________________________
26. Grandpa says the secret to fighting a war is to
“hold on to the things you ______________________________________,
“set your ___________________________________________________,
and “______________________________________________________________.
27. Grandpa also says “War does that – it blows things up and leaves
_______________________________________________________________”
“I’ll tell you something about empty places. They don’t get filled in right away.
You’ve got to look at them straight on, see what’s still standing.
Concentrate on __________________________________________________________.”
28. In which other chapter and question were you asked about what you have? _______________
Read these instructions, and then read Chapter 11
29. Summarize chapter 11 in the box below. Remember to include the most important things that happen, and keep them in the order they happened in the chapter.
__________________________________________________________________________
Name _____________________________________________ Period ____ Date ______________
Text: The novel Stand Tall by Joan Bauer -- This genre of this novel is realistic fiction.
Reading strategies: QAR’s, expressing opinions, inferring, summarizing, noticing the reader’s alignment
Read these questions, and then read Chapter 12
30. “Let’s go with what we’ve got Grandpa.” Who says this, and why? ______________________
________________________________________________________________________________
31. Who is the Trash King? (Q.A.R. “Think and Search. See also pages 57-58.) ______________
________________________________________________________________________________
32. Do you think it’s a good idea or not to have a Santa in a wheelchair visit children in the hospital as Leo does? Why? ________________________________________________________
33. Why did Tree feel taller at the end of chapter 12? ___________________________________________________
Read these questions, and then read Chapter 13
34. Larry is ____________________________________. (Who is he?)
Bradley is __________________________________. (Who is he?)
35. Why is Larry drinking? __________________________________________________________
36. Page 87 – Grandpa says, “That’s what it comes down to sometimes – forgetting how you______;
being ____________ in front of your ______________.”
37. From where do Grandpa, Tree, Curtis, and Larry steal a Christmas tree? ________________________________________________________________________________
Read these questions, and then read Chapter 14
38. Vocabulary: Use context clues to figure out a word.
If Tree’s mom has a small Serenity Fountain that sits on a table top and has “gentle, gurgling water [cascading] over small, peaceful rocks” and “That is what her life would become. Someday,” then Serenity (noun) must mean _________________________________________________________
39. Tree’s mom wants to have a perfect Christmas dinner with her sons. What goes wrong?
_________________________________________________________________________
40. Chapters 12-14: What is your alignment? In other words, from where or how are you seeing the story? ______________________________________________________________________
Remember when we read Words By Heart, and talked about how we saw a scene: as if watching a movie, as if you were the main character, standing nearby, like a bird at the window, etc.? That's your "alignment."
