Inspire your students with this brave story about racism and homelessness. The helpful journal topics offer extended writing activities and discussion prompts. Students come up with possible story ideas that could relate to the title, "maniac". Illustrate the scene between McNab and Maniac. Match quotes to the characters who said them. Students confront the idea of discrimination by identifying some of the ways people discriminate against other people. Find proof from the story to support the different qualities inhabited by Maniac and Grayson. Give meaning to expressions from the story. Identify each expression as a simile or metaphor. Identify a major and minor problem that Maniac faces in the story and explain each in a paragraph. Aligned to your State Standards, additional crossword, word search, comprehension quiz and answer key are also included. About the Novel: Maniac Magee is a Newbery Medal winning-story about a young homeless boy running through town and the different people he meets along the way. Orphaned at the age of three, Jeffrey Magee runs away from his Aunt and Uncle eight years later. He finds himself in Two Mills, Pennsylvania, where he realizes the town is split in half—the East End and the West End. Running his way through the town, Magee learns of the hatred and racism that separates the two sides. Along the way, he meets a wide range of interesting characters, and even develops a legend for himself, earning him the nickname "Maniac". He endures hardships while moving from place to place, eventually finding a home in a buffalo pen at the zoo.

A Newbery Medal winning modern classic about a racially divided small town and a boy who runs. Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee might have lived a normal life if a freak accident hadn't made him an orphan. After living with his unhappy and uptight aunt and uncle for eight years, he decides to run--and not just run away, but run. This is where the myth of Maniac Magee begins, as he changes the lives of a racially divided small town with his amazing and legendary feats.

He wasn't born with the name Maniac Magee. He came into this world named Jeffrey Lionel Magee, but when his parents died and his life changed, so did his name. And Maniac Magee became a legend. Even today kids talk about how fast he could run; about how he hit an inside-the-park "frog" homer; how no knot, no matter how snarled, would stay that way once he began to untie it. But the thing Maniac Magee is best known for is what he did for the kids from the East Side and those from the West Side.

Explore the many obstacles that Maniac Magee encounters in this eye-opening book. Students will learn to analyze prejudices and other challenges that Magee faces by completing fun, challenging activities and lessons provided in this digital instructional guide for literature. This e-book guide is the perfect tool for teachers to aid students in analyzing and comprehending this story. Appealing and challenging cross-curricular lessons and activities incorporate research-based literacy skills to help students become thorough readers. These lessons and activities work in conjunction with the text to teach students how to analyze and comprehend story elements in multiple ways, practice close reading and text-based vocabulary, determine meaning through text-dependent questions, and much more.

Spend the summer with Sara and the challenges she experiences while discovering herself. New ideas are provided for checking student comprehension of the novel. Set a purpose for reading by discussing the roles of family and the difficulties within. Describe how Sara sees her life as suddenly changing. State Sara and Wanda's differing opinions on Sara's haircut. Become a detective and determine whether Sara has sufficient evidence to accuse Joe of stealing Charlie's watch. Match vocabulary words from the novel to their synonyms. Step into the shoes of Joe and write a letter to an advice columnist about Sara and her rude behavior. List the problems faced by Sara and the possible solutions in a Problem-Solution Chart. Aligned to your State Standards, additional crossword, word search, comprehension quiz and answer key are also included. About the Novel: A classic coming-of-age story of fourteen-year-old, Sara, who lives in a small town in West Virginia. This Newbery Medal winning-story centers on Sara and her troubled relationship with her remote father, her perfect older sister, and Joe Melby—a boy from school. All of these problems are quickly placed on the backburner when Charlie, her mentally disabled brother, wanders out of the house in the middle of the night and goes missing. While resolving this serious crisis, Sara discovers a great deal of herself. When she and Joe find Charlie safe and sound, Sara comes to grips with the knowledge that she is comfortable with who she is and who she is becoming.

Find the power to stand up for yourself and what you believe in. Students will become highly-engaged in the activities presented in this resource. Make predictions about what will happen in the following chapters based on what you know of the characters so far. Describe how Palmer felt about pigeons based on his reactions from the first two Pigeon Days. Answer multiple choice questions about Palmer's experience with his friends. Retell Palmer's reasons for not wanting to be a wringer as he tells them to Dorothy. Create a poem that describes Palmer's actions throughout the story. Describe three important settings from the novel and discuss some of the important plot events that happened at each of them. Aligned to your State Standards, additional crossword, word search, comprehension quiz and answer key are also included. About the Novel: Wringer teaches students the importance of self confidence and standing up against bullying. Palmer LaRue dreads the day he will turn ten years old. When he was just four years old, he witnessed his first Pigeon Day—a yearly celebration that takes place during Family Fest in the small town of Waymer. On this day, five thousand pigeons are shot. Traumatized by what he saw, Palmer forever feared the day he would turn ten and become a wringer. A wringer is someone who wrings the neck of wounded pigeons. Nearing his tenth birthday, Palmer falls in with a group of bullies who hate pigeons more than anything. At first, Palmer is proud of his new friendship, but that all changes when he befriends a pigeon. Wringer highlights Palmer’s struggle between what his friends think and what he feels is right.