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Note: This lesson plan is part of the Book Club Online Archive. You can access and download the lessons and view the archived discussion from December 1998. We will be using this lesson plan again as the basis for future online discussions; please see the main page for more information.
This activity will link Book Club classrooms around the country in a discussion of The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg. Participating classrooms will begin reading the book on Tuesday, December 1, and will read at the pace described by daily reading assignments in the lesson plans. The activity assumes a basic knowledge of the Book Club program, as outlined in the teacher's handbook and videotape. The following unit for The View from Saturday was developed and written by Ellen Fitch, a fourth- and fifth-grade teacher at the Center for Language, Culture and Communication Arts (CLCCA) in Lansing, Michigan. Many thanks to her for sharing her lesson plans with the Book Club Online community! Introducing the Book The View from Saturday is the 1997 Newbery Award winner. This unit contains 14 lessons that focus mostly on literary elements. I would recommend that the unit be taught in the middle of the school year or later. Point of view (the story is told from several different ones) and story format (flashbacks) could cause confusion. Prior knowledge on plot, characters, and point of view will help lessen this confusion. Before teaching this unit, it would be helpful to build background knowledge in three areas. As the setting of this book is built around an academic bowl, students would benefit from some exposure to what one of these events is like. In the Lansing area, Quiz Bowl is often seen on Public Television. Additionally, calligraphy and sea turtles play an important part in the story. A little history on calligraphy, possibly with an "expert" coming in to demonstrate, would help build students' knowledge. Also, I would recommend that students do an inquiry project on sea turtles, focusing on those species that migrate off the coast of Florida: loggerheads, greens, leatherbacks, hawksbill, and Kemp's ridley. (See below for a list of Links to Related Internet Resources.) Introducing Students to the Online Discussion In the days leading up to the online discussion, you should build students' excitement for the activity and prepare them to take part in it. Tell them that they're going to read a great book and talk about it with their classmates in Book Club. Each day they'll also have the chance to communicate with students in other classrooms who are reading The View from Saturday. By using the Internet, they can share the best ideas that come out of their reading logs and book club discussions with their peers in other regions. Introduce students to the Student Comment Form and the Student Comments pages, and make sure they understand how the online discussion will work. You'll want to give some advance thought to how you will integrate this online communication into your daily routine. For example, you might set aside a block of time each day when students can take turns at the computer, or you might arrange a rotating schedule so that each child gets to write in every other day. Entering the Online Lesson Plan Use these links to see an outline for the View from Saturday lesson plan, to go to individual lessons, to read the comments from teachers and students that we've received so far, or to submit your own comments via e-mail:
Mrs. Eva Marie Olinski, after having been injured in an accident ten years ago that left her a paraplegic, has returned to teaching at Epiphany Middle School in Epiphany, NY. Like every other teacher at Epiphany, Mrs. Olinski chooses four students from her sixth grade homeroom class to compete in the school's academic bowl. The process by which she chooses them is slow and unconventional, but she follows her instincts to pick Noah, Nadia, Ethan, and Julian. As her team beats the entire sixth grade class and then goes on to defeat the seventh grade, many people ask her how she chose her team. She is able to give several sensible reasons, but none of these is the whole truth. The story begins on the championship day of the academic bowl. As each member of the team, self-named "The Souls," answers a question, the story flashes back to tell his or her story. Each story reveals both the character of the student who tells it and the student's connection to the other three teammates. By the end of the novel, Mrs. Olinski makes her own discoveries about The Souls and about herself. The View from Saturday is an excellent book for the teaching of themes. An explicit theme is the meaning of friendship. More implicit is the effect of personal experiences on one's life, as each character has his or her own story to tell. The Souls demonstrate respect for one another as well as cooperation; each character is an individual, but without cooperation their success would not have occurred. As these themes may be difficult for students to identify, it may be helpful to integrate them into class discussions throughout the unit. E. L. Konisgburg has written many books for young readers. Her best known titles are From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (the 1968 Newbery Award winner) and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. Other books with a theme of friendship include Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (Harper Collins, 1987), The Friends by Kuzumi Yumoto (translation by Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1996), A Taste of Blackberries by Doris B. Smith (Harper, 1973), and Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech (Harper Collins, 1994). Links to Related Internet Resources You might find the following web sites useful during your teaching of The View from Saturday.
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