One Crazy Summer
Written by: Rita Williams-Garcia
Published: 2010
Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books
Reading Level: 4
Lexile Measure: 750
Awards: 2011 Newbery Honor Book, 2011 Coretta Scott King Author Book Award Winner
Suggested Delivery: Read Aloud
Summary:
This is a historical fiction novel that follows eleven year old Delphine and her two younger sisters Vonetta and Fern. They live in New York in 1968 during a time where this is an enormous push for civil rights. The girls don't know their mother because she left when they were young and they currently live with their father and grandmother. Still, they are sent to Oakland, California to live with their mother for a summer. Although they have high hopes about meeting their mother the feeling quickly vanishes after a few days. Their mother constantly ignores them and takes away all their money, leaving only enough for takeout each day. The three girls are then forced to go to a Black Panther summer camp by their mother. While there they learn more about the social problems and are feed information by the camp leaders. Follow the girls as they fight to have a relationship with their mother, while learning about the racial issues of the time and radical movements such as the Black Panthers.
Words to Describe One Crazy Summer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5V4GcqniHk
This youtube video is a simple author discussion about the book. This is good for students to watch as it's a simple way for them to grasp the concept of the book and make real world connections. The author Rita Williams-Garcia gives her insight about what things in her life inspired her to write the book and what connections she makes to the characters.
http://files.harpercollins.com/PDF/TeachingGuides/0060760885.pdf
This is a website produced by the publisher HarperCollins. This is a good teaching guide for teachers to use when the class is reading the book. The site offers many discussion questions and extension activities that students will enjoy! It's good to look it over and take some ideas from the site.
Key Vocabulary Terms
Before Reading Activity
One Crazy Summer deals with issues of the Civil Rights movement during the 1960s in America. A good introduction to this book would be to have the students research the civil rights movement. Have the students fill out a chart similar to image attached to this post about the civil rights movement. The students will fill in what they don't know about the Civil Rights movement with some basic research. This is a good website to use for research http://www.ducksters.com/history/civil_rights/
During Reading Activity
Since this novel tackles important social issues, I believe it's important for the students to discuss the topics. For this activity I think a fishbowl discussion can be useful. Divide the students into two groups that will take turns discussing. This activity will be a little complicated, but with careful explanation the students will be able to achieve in this activity. When an important social issue comes up in the novel have the students get into their groups with one group being in the center. Give the students a small background on the issue on hand and some questions they can talk about. Ask them to discuss their thoughts, focusing on how people are treated and how they should be treated. These questions will be good discussion points, but keep the topics more on the simple side.
After Reading Activity
Once again the topic of civil rights is a good thing to address from this book. In the book Delphine's mother is seen as a writer and often writes poems. A good activity for students is to analyze poems that have to do with the civil rights movement. This can be a good use of poems for two voices, which can have two different viewpoints of the movement and the people involved or can be used to make connections to other moments in history. The following website offers a couple poems for two voices that can be used to show students the different viewpoints of the movement between the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. It also has a connection to the Women's suffrage movement. http://sites.utexas.edu/utes_socialstudies/2011/01/12/civil-rights-poetry-for-martin-luther-king-jr-day-of-service/
Writing Activity
A big emphasis of this time period was the reporting of events in the news. Based on the events and things that happen in this novel have the students write a newspaper article describing the events that take place and offer their own viewpoint. An example of this can be a student writing about the Black Panther Rally or people being arrested. It's important to get the students viewpoint on the issues as well, so have them make a connection to other things that happened in the civil rights movement.
Written by: Rita Williams-Garcia
Published: 2010
Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books
Reading Level: 4
Lexile Measure: 750
Awards: 2011 Newbery Honor Book, 2011 Coretta Scott King Author Book Award Winner
Suggested Delivery: Read Aloud
Summary:
This is a historical fiction novel that follows eleven year old Delphine and her two younger sisters Vonetta and Fern. They live in New York in 1968 during a time where this is an enormous push for civil rights. The girls don't know their mother because she left when they were young and they currently live with their father and grandmother. Still, they are sent to Oakland, California to live with their mother for a summer. Although they have high hopes about meeting their mother the feeling quickly vanishes after a few days. Their mother constantly ignores them and takes away all their money, leaving only enough for takeout each day. The three girls are then forced to go to a Black Panther summer camp by their mother. While there they learn more about the social problems and are feed information by the camp leaders. Follow the girls as they fight to have a relationship with their mother, while learning about the racial issues of the time and radical movements such as the Black Panthers.
Words to Describe One Crazy Summer
- Insightful
- Alarming
- Enlightening
- Historically significant
- Intriguing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5V4GcqniHk
This youtube video is a simple author discussion about the book. This is good for students to watch as it's a simple way for them to grasp the concept of the book and make real world connections. The author Rita Williams-Garcia gives her insight about what things in her life inspired her to write the book and what connections she makes to the characters.
http://files.harpercollins.com/PDF/TeachingGuides/0060760885.pdf
This is a website produced by the publisher HarperCollins. This is a good teaching guide for teachers to use when the class is reading the book. The site offers many discussion questions and extension activities that students will enjoy! It's good to look it over and take some ideas from the site.
Key Vocabulary Terms
- Poverty- the state of being poor
- Scrutiny- carefully examining something in a critical way
- Recreation- something people do to relax or have fun
- Fugitive- A person who is running away to avoid being captured
- Plea- a serious or emotional request
- Civic- Relating to citizenship or being a citizen.
Before Reading Activity
One Crazy Summer deals with issues of the Civil Rights movement during the 1960s in America. A good introduction to this book would be to have the students research the civil rights movement. Have the students fill out a chart similar to image attached to this post about the civil rights movement. The students will fill in what they don't know about the Civil Rights movement with some basic research. This is a good website to use for research http://www.ducksters.com/history/civil_rights/
During Reading Activity
Since this novel tackles important social issues, I believe it's important for the students to discuss the topics. For this activity I think a fishbowl discussion can be useful. Divide the students into two groups that will take turns discussing. This activity will be a little complicated, but with careful explanation the students will be able to achieve in this activity. When an important social issue comes up in the novel have the students get into their groups with one group being in the center. Give the students a small background on the issue on hand and some questions they can talk about. Ask them to discuss their thoughts, focusing on how people are treated and how they should be treated. These questions will be good discussion points, but keep the topics more on the simple side.
After Reading Activity
Once again the topic of civil rights is a good thing to address from this book. In the book Delphine's mother is seen as a writer and often writes poems. A good activity for students is to analyze poems that have to do with the civil rights movement. This can be a good use of poems for two voices, which can have two different viewpoints of the movement and the people involved or can be used to make connections to other moments in history. The following website offers a couple poems for two voices that can be used to show students the different viewpoints of the movement between the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. It also has a connection to the Women's suffrage movement. http://sites.utexas.edu/utes_socialstudies/2011/01/12/civil-rights-poetry-for-martin-luther-king-jr-day-of-service/
Writing Activity
A big emphasis of this time period was the reporting of events in the news. Based on the events and things that happen in this novel have the students write a newspaper article describing the events that take place and offer their own viewpoint. An example of this can be a student writing about the Black Panther Rally or people being arrested. It's important to get the students viewpoint on the issues as well, so have them make a connection to other things that happened in the civil rights movement.