Lesson 33:

Getting ready to discuss.

In this lesson, students prepare to engage in the final structured discussion. Introduce the question: “How are these different people ‘family’ to Lonnie?” Break the class into four groups, and assign each group a character or characters from the novel. Workbook pp. 157-160 list specific poems about each character. Each group completes the page about their character. They will reread the poems and jot ideas about how their character is like family to Lonnie. Ideally, this lesson requires live, synchronous group work. You could use a breakout room for each team, meet with each group separately at a different time, or assign students to collaborate with their peers outside of class time.