Reaching for Sun Teacher's Guide

Reaching for Sun

By Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

Bloomsbury Books

ISBN-13: 978-1-59990-037-7

ISBN-10: 59990-37-8

March 2007

Teacher Guide

From the Jacket:

Josie Wyatt knows what it means to be different. Her family’s small farmhouse seems to shrink each time another mansion goes up behind it. She lives with her career-obsessed mom and opinionated Gran, but has never known her father. Then there’s her cerebral palsy: even if Josie wants to forget that she was born with a disability, her mom can’t seem to let it go. Yet when a strange new boy- Jordan- moves into one of the houses nearby, he seems oblivious to all the things that make Josie different. Before long, Josie finds herself reaching out for something she’s never really known: a friend…and possibly more. Interlinked free verse poems tell the beautiful, heartfelt story of a girl, a proud family farm reduced to a garden, and a year of unforgettable growth.

Pre-reading:

What do you and your best friends like to do together? Why is friendship important to us? When did you develop your first true friend? How would your life be different if you didn’t have any friends at school or home?

Discussion Guide

1. Describe what Josie’s life at school is like. How is it typical of most kids in middle school? How is it different for her? How are “taunts like tomatoes?”

2. Compare Josie’s Gran with her Mom. Do they have anything in common? Why does Josie say that Gran is more like her mother? What do you think it would be like to be raised in a family of all women? Do you think Josie is more like her gran or her mom? Why?

3. Why do things begin to change for Josie come springtime? Who and what have been Josie’s only companions until now? Can you think of other kids whose lives might be as lonely as Josie’s? What would it be like to feel so different? Does everyone feel different sometimes?

4. Jordan is able to look past Josie’s disability and get to know the real girl. Why do you think Jordan can while other kids don’t even try? How do you know when someone is really your friend? How does Josie know? Can Josie take some of the blame for not having friends too?

5. What activities do Jordan and Josie like to do together? What are your favorite things to do with your friends? How did this one friend change Josie? Have you ever been changed by a friend you made? How?

6. Why does Josie lie to her mom? Who was more wrong- her mom for not asking about the clinic, or Josie for lying to her about it? What would you have done? Do you think her mom would’ve listened to her? Why or why not? What consequences did her lying have?

7. What happens to Gran in the story? How does it mirror Josie’s own struggles? What do you think is the hardest part about Josie seeing her Gran like this?

8. Josie knows so much about the garden yet she never really studied it. How is that possible? Are there any topics like this for you? How do families pass down their unique knowledge from one generation to the next? How can this knowledge change from one generation to the next?

9. Which poem is your favorite? Why do you think the author decided to write the book in a series of poems? What does it add to the story?

10. Reread the quotes or excerpts from poems that open each season. What do they mean? How do they give a clue to what will happen next in the story? Which one is your favorite? Why?

Projects:

Language Arts:
Voice:
Reaching for Sun is written completely in Josie’s voice. Experiment with voice by writing a few free verse poems through the eyes of Jordan. It can be any part of the novel or even set after it is over. Think about what types of words Jordan would use to describe an event and what types of things he might compare something to.

Comprehension:
Reread any poem in the story and answer the following questions about it: Who is it about? What happens in the poem? Where does it take place? What poetic language does the author use? Why did you choose this poem?

Fluency:
Free verse poetry is a great form to build student fluency- with it’s generous white space it doesn’t intimidate and it is written to flow off the tongue. Have students tape themselves reading a poem and then practice reading it silently (or under their breath) and then re-tape their reading. Students will be impressed by their marked improved performance.

Vocabulary:
As you read find ten words that you wouldn’t usually use in your everyday conversations. Then, try to use them as you go through your day. Write a brief journal about how this word experiment went.

Science:
Three Feet Square
Josie and Jordan tape off a small section of the garden and then study it over the course of the summer. You could do the same (and choose an even smaller border). Count insects, take pictures, study the plants and the soil conditions over time.

Health:
Learn more about cerebral palsy or another common disability. Research the causes, the impairments it can cause, the treatments, and how you can help. Create a pamphlet about what you learned.

Art:
Create a piece of collage or sculpture inspired by Josie’s story. Use any media you like but explain it in a brief artist’s statement that you turn in with the piece (an index card works nicely).

Cooking:
Gran’s Divinity Recipe (from the author’s grandmother’s kitchen)

Poetic Elements

Reaching for Sun

By Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

Poets use word tools to make their language stand out from regular prose. This poetic language is called figurative and it has many types. Read the definitions of these tools and then find an example of each in the novel. Then, try your own!

Types of poetic language:	An example from the novel:	An example of your own:
ALLITERATION: Repeated consonant sounds " lovely, leafy lettuce”
ASSONANCE: Repeated Vowel sounds "The June moon loomed over the horizon"
IMAGERY: Creating pictures for the senses “First day of school smells like new books”
METAPHORS: Comparing two things by saying something IS something else: “the ocean is a bowl of dreams”
SIMILE: A comparison using the words "like" or "as." "He smells like a gym shoe.”
PERSONIFICATION: Making an object act or look like a person or animal "The storm danced across the sky”

Character Chart

Reaching for Sun
Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

Readers learn about characters in four ways: what they say, what they do, what they look like, and what others think and say about them. Find details about each character that helps you understand them from the book.

Appearance Actions Words Others

Josie
Gran
Jordan
Mom
Natalie

COMPREHENSION
Making Connections:

Good readers make connections as they try to understand a story. They think about how the story reminds them of other stories, how it relates to their own life and to the world around them. Tuck this chart in the book so you can make notes about what you’re thinking as you read the novel. Try to make at least one of each type of connection for each season in the book.

Chapter & p. #	Text to text	Text to self	Text to world
Definitions:	Tell how this book reminds you of another in plot, content, style or structure	Relate what you just read to an experience or memory from your own life	Show how the book relates to events from the real world, or facts and info. that you know
Examples:	This book reminds me of LOVE THAT DOG by Sharon Creech because it is written in poem	Like Josie I’ve been teased at school though not as often.	I wonder if Josie can be cured of cerebral palsy or if she’ll always have it.
Winter
Spring
Summer
Fall

COMPREHENSION
Understanding Poems

Sometimes readers get confused when they read poems because of the fancy language or how few words are used to tell a story. Practice your understanding of poems by thinking about the five “W’s” as you read: who, what, when, where, and why.

Title of poem: _____________ page______

Who is this poem about?

Where does this poem take place?

What happens in the poem?

When is it happening?

Why is this poem important?

Title of poem: _____________ page______

Who is this poem about?

Where does this poem take place?

What happens in the poem?

When is it happening?

Why is this poem important?

2. Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.

3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).

5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.

6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.

7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.

11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.