First of all

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Home : 2009 : March : 14

First of all
By maryteach

any sixth grader who comes in having already "done" Crispin didn't understand it anyway. It's about an eighth grade level. I only use it with my highest sixth grade readers.

I'm doing Tale of Despereaux right now
with some of my grade level readers. Almost every one of them has "read" it or heard it read by their teacher last year. That's okay. I'm sure it was only read at plot level and this is one DEEP book. I can tell they only read it at a very superficial level because they are, without a single exception, ignorant of the beautiful construction of this novel, the metaphor of the light

and the dark and even the significance of Roscuro fulfilling his destiny (and his name) by coming out of the darkness, both literally and figuratively. I mean, they have NO CLUE until we start working. So I don't really worry about it too much if they've "read" it already, because they haven't read it with ME, and that is a whole different animal.

Sometimes elementary teachers just pick the wrong books--way, way too high. There is nothing wrong with a fifth grade teacher using any of the books you mention (except Crispin) but in my town, they are famous for really missing it on reading levels. Some of the books they've "done" with their kids (and I really use the term loosely) are:

Absolutely Normal Chaos
Walk Two Moons
Freak the Mighty
A Wrinkle in Time (lexile is way wrong on this one)
Esperanza Rising

These are all books that I use with really high-reading sixth graders, and they even struggle. The level of metaphor in, say, Esperanza is beyond elementary school children. So I just don't worry about it if they've "done" these books, because I know they didn't understand anything at all beyond just the very basic plot (and in a lot of instances, they're even confused about that). I go ahead and do the book anyway, and the kids are always amazed by what they DIDN'T understand in fifth grade. So I don't really worry about it.

Neecee, don't scrap it. Use it. Go beyond plot mechanics into the working of the metaphor, they symbolism, the actual working of the novel. Novels are so carefully, carefully crafted. Teach them to appreciate the careful and deliberate construction, to see how it's built, how it works.