Summary: Eleven-year-old Melody can’t walk, talk or write. She is not like all other people because she has cerebral palsy. However, she also has a photographic memory; she can remember every detail of everything she has ever experienced. She’s the smartest kid in her whole school, but no one knows it. Most people dismiss her as mentally challenged because she can’t tell them otherwise. Melody is determined to find a way to let everyone know that she is smart.

Author’s Purpose: The book Out of My Mind is a book about the power of language. It explores in depth the ability of language to forge mutual understanding and shape personal identity (Litcharts, n.d.)

Classroom Activity based on new literacies discussed:

1. Before reading the book, teachers and students can look at the website provided (Shrader et al., 2021). It talks about what cerebral palsy is and will help your students better understand what Melody, the main character, is going through.

2. Do a “compare and contrast” list to develop critical thinking. Students look at how Melody was before her medi-talker and how she changed after her medi-talker.

Reference:

Draper, S. M. (2012). Out of my mind (Reprint ed.). Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Shrader, M. W., Salzbrenner, M., & APRN. (2021, November). Cerebral palsy (CP) (for parents) - nemours KidsHealth. The Nemours Foundation. https://www.kidshealth.org/en/parents/cerebral-palsy.html

Summary: This is a book with many stories which are fun and kind-hearted in it, each with the same main characters, a girl named Flora and a superhero named Ulysses.

Author’s Purpose: To provide short stories with pre-established characters that are compelling and encouraging. This is an effective building block approach to reading a longer chapter style book as each “chapter” functions as a standalone story but readers will still benefit from retaining previous information about the main characters.

Classroom Activity based on new literacies discussed:

1. Dramatic arts: Ask students to work in partners, assigning each of the two main parts to them, and to act out a short skit of their favorite story in the book.

Reference:

DiCamillo, K., & Campbell, K. G. (2016). Flora and ulysses: The illuminated adventures (Reprint ed.). Candlewick.

Summary: The Wonder is about a 5th grader who goes to school after being homeschooled because of his facial deformities. It is a story of true friendship and overcoming adversities. The story presents August Pullman and how he sees the world around him and strives to make friends, even when they are not friendly. The book also presents some other characters’ points of view, the reasoning for their action, and in the end, August’s strength and friendship make a difference.

Author’s Purpose: The book tells the reader that being different is OK. Do the right thing and don’t give in to peer pressure.

Classroom Activity based on new literacies discussed:

1. Visual-Art. Have students draw their imagination of August Pullman and how they would be friends with him.

2. Writing workshop. Using their devices, students will write a letter to an imaginary friend who is far away, and they consider the first time they tried something scary. How did they overcome it? Who was there to support them? What challenges did they face?

3. Maker space. Teamwork. Students can build an astronaut helmet like August’s helmet by working together in teams. Work with someone other than your best friend.

Reference:

Palacio, R. J. (2012a). Wonder (1st ed.). Knopf Books for Young Readers.

Summary: Narrated from the perspective of a young boy, Fortunately the Milk tells the crazy tale of what happens when mum is away at a conference and dad goes out to the corner shop to buy breakfast for milk. After taking an inordinately long time to buy the milk, Dad returns with an account of various bizarre adventures he experienced during his errand. These include being abducted by green globby aliens, encounters with pirates, travelling dinosaurs in hot-air balloons and galactic police. Thankfully, despite having taken "ages and ages", Dad eventually returns home with the milk and some crazy stories to tell. In many ways, it is a book about dads "making the ordinary extraordinary and finding the magical in the mundane" (Bloomsbury, n.d.).

Author's Purpose: Apart from being a wonderfully entertaining book, Neil Gaiman explains that his main motivation in writing this story was to craft a tale in which "dads get to do all of the really cool, important and exciting things that dads normally get to do on a daily basis" including fighting pirates, vampires and even going to the corner shop to buy milk (Bloomsbury, n.d, p.3).

Classroom Activity based on new literacies discussed:

1. For this activity, students are asked to imagine that they are one of the boys from the story and that later in the day, the children's mom sends them a message asking how their day has been. What would they say? How could they account for Dad having taken so long to go and buy milk? For this creative writing assignment, the children are presented with a choice board. All the activities are digital, but the students can choose whether they will respond to the creative writing prompt by producing an email, a dialogue, or another form of communication using an online platform. Various writing templates are provided that the students can use (for example a mock Whatsapp conversation, email or blog).

References:

Bloomsbury (n.d.), Teachers guide to fortunately the milk, https://media.bloomsbury.com/rep/files/fortunately-the-milk-teacher-notes.pdf

Gaiman, N., & Riddell, C. (2014). Fortunately, the milk. Bloomsbury Children's Books.