ER materials By Mary

You will find this curriculum to be nothing but short answer--no fill in the blank, no T/F, no drawing lines between words and definitions. If I want a definition for a word, I always ask for it from the context. I use a lot of "what do you think" questions; my kids love them because they know they can't get it wrong as long as they're really just telling me what they think, predict, etc. The only time I use a "right-there" question is when I think they may be confused about what's going on--for instance, at one point, I ask, "Who is Sixto?" just because a surprising number of them don't catch that Sixto is Esperanza's father (called Papa everywhere else in the book).

These question sets will grade very quickly and let you know right away, I think, who's with you and who's not. If you have any suggestions after seeing them, I would love to hear them.

BTW, Esperanza Rising is too hard for fourth graders. What is her teacher thinking, I wonder? I just taught it to grade-level sixth graders and it was really too hard for most of them. They can decode the words okay, but the level of metaphor and symbolism is pretty steep. I would never take fourth graders through this book as anything but a read-aloud, and even that would be challenging, I bet. My next kids to read this will be a little above grade level. I tend to think it's really a seventh grade book.

Again, sorry not to check back for so long. Email me and I will send the questions to you.