This week is the first week we are reading something that is totally new to me. I look forward to thinking and writing about this new text with all of you.

This week: our classroom this week is close in age as our protagonists: a ninth grade class at Sharon High School. If you want to get a sense of the school and its students, you can check out the school’s site. You can check out the demographic stats for the school here as well as stuff about MCAS scores and other performance indicators. You can also check out this slideshow (why it’s a slideshow I have no idea) about summer reading. It’s sort of interesting because of the selections included. I think that Aristotle and Dante would not be out of place on this list.
 
As you respond, consider the following:

• Is there media you might use in support of teaching this text? Is there media students might create?
• Are there other texts you might pair with this text?
• Are there more “canonical” or framework friendly texts you might teach that could be paired with it?

 
These are questions we’ve been thinking about all semester. But, in the interest of supporting your work in the final assignment, consider how writing would support the teaching of this text:

• What sort of low stakes writing could you employ (writing to know)?
• What sort of writing might you ask of your students as a summative assignment—a more high-stakes writing assignment (writing to show)?
• Is there an opportunity for groupwork?
• Is there an opportunity for student presentation?

Because the novel’s two main characters age 13 to 16 respectively, I’m really interested in how this text would play in a 10th grade English Class.  This week’s scenario is West Bridgewater Middle-Senior high school. West Bridgewater has an enrollment—for both middle and high school—of 606 students. It’s a small school in a small town. Also, Plymouth county is one of the most politically conservative towns in the entire state. That doesn’t necessarily mean any one thing in particular, but the parents of these students live in this county and it’s these households they were raised in.
 
There is minimal information available about WB high. Here is what I could find:

• 506 verbal, 508 math, 496 writing 1510 total (2015–2016) If this matters at all, 500 is the cut off score in the old SAT for placement in ENGL 101. So, on the average, these students just barely place into 101.

 
I did find a little information about the town itself, which, again, can tell you something about who the students are who attend WB.

• The racial makeup of the town (in the last census) was 96.40% White, 0.95% African American, 0.26% Native American, 0.68% Asian, 0.45% from other races, and 1.27% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.01% of the population.


• There were 2,444 households out of which 31.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 59.9% were married couples living together, 9.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26.5% were non-families.
• The median income for a household in the town was $55,958, and the median income for a family was $64,815. Males had a median income of $41,863 versus $31,835 for females. The per capita income for the town was $23,701. About 2.0% of families and 3.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 0.5% of those under age 18 and 6.3% of those age 65 or over.
  
  

So, considering what we can know, what would be the joys and complexities of teaching this book? Let’s add to this, what texts might you pair it with in a standard 10th grade English class (available here)? What media might you bring in to support strong reading and discussion of the text?