Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. One of the central themes of My Life as a Book is The Power of Alternative Approaches to Learning. What do you think an “approach to learning” is? What do you know about conventional versus unconventional (common versus uncommon) learning approaches? Is it important to you that teachers include the option to learn in different ways?

Teaching Suggestion: Connecting to the novel’s theme The Power of Alternative Approaches to Learning will prime students to look for evidence of such approaches as they begin reading. These questions are phrased to slowly gauge students’ knowledge of alternative approaches; if they don’t know what learning approaches are, clarify that before moving to the second question. The third question encourages students to reflect on the importance of differentiation strategies in their personal learning process and can help students develop empathy for the novel’s protagonist as he struggles and rebels against the idea of reading books without pictures.

• “Evidence Based Reading Strategies for Struggling Readers with Learning Disabilities and Emotional Disorder” – an academic study on the effectiveness of various alternative reading strategies for elementary students who struggle to learn to read
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