White Bird

White Bird by R.J. Palacio is an edition to The Wonder Story series. When Julian meets with his grandmere to ask about her life growing up during World War II, she shares her experiences of courage, hardship, and resilience with him as a young girl named Sara, growing up Jewish in France under Nazi control. Through learning about where grandmere came from, Julian learns the significance of his name and lessons that will carry him to fight injustice in the world around him today.

Written by R.J. Palacio

Published in 2019 by Knopf Books for Young Readers

Genre: historical fiction, graphic novel

Reading level: grades 3-6

Suggested delivery: independent

2020 Sydney Taylor Award

Big Ideas (key words):

Resilience

Perseverance

Family

Hardship

Kindness

Common Core State Standard:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.3 Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves towards a resolution.

Teaching Strategies:

Building schema before reading:

Historical background and context of World War II 1930s-1940s
- The relationship between France and Germany
- Define and address terms/topics:
  - Nazi: a group of soldiers from Germany who serve and enforce the practices of Adolf Hitler
  - Jewish: a group of people who follow the religion of Judaism
  - Anti-Jew laws: laws that sought to strip Jewish people of their rights and property from the start of Hitler's control
  - Antisemitism: prejudice against Jewish groups of people
  - Concentration camps: a place where large numbers of minority groups are deliberately imprisoned to provide forced labor or to await mass execution.
    - There were several hundred camps established by the Nazis that spanned within Europe between 1933-1945, among the most infamous being Auschwitz, Belsen, and Dachau.

Supporting the Text:

This video provides support for how the story is set up

During reading:

Cover essential vocabulary terms as they arise in the story:
- Humanities: relating to the human race collectively
- Bluebells: a European flower that produces clusters of blue bell-shaped flowers in the spring
- Maquisard: a French solder in World War II
- Polio: a severe illness that can lead to a person being unable to move certain parts of their body
- Protest: an act of expressing disagreement against something
- Injustice: violation of human rights
- Refugee: a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war
- Policy: a principle of action proposed by a government
Example reflection/discussion questions to drive comprehension:
- How is Sara and Julien's relationship illuminated throughout the story?
  - What challenges and experiences do they face? How do they face or overcome these challenges?
- How are the Nazi soldiers represented in the story?
- How does Sara respond to the discrimination and antisemitism that plagues her village?
- How has Sara's character evolved from her experiences growing up in France to where she is now as she tells Julien about her life?
  - How does Sara choose to respond to the challenges, hardships, and struggles she faced in her past?
- What is the meaning of the white bird's appearance throughout multiple instances in the book?
  - How are these instances connected back to the white bird's meaning?
  - How does this connect to the title of the story, White Bird?
- What is the significance of Julien's name being passed down multiple times throughout Sara's family?
- What do the bluebells represent in the story?

After reading:

- Students will be given the task of constructing a diary that Sara might have kept during her time living in the small village in France
  - Students must include the character's thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the experiences she faces at that time in her life
  - To extend from this, students may also be given the task of using Padlet to turn their diary entries into a timeline to track Sara's experiences, feelings, and reactions throughout the story
    - Link to Padlet to get started: https://padlet.com/

Extension of the Text:

An interview with the author of White Bird, R.J. Palacio, on her creation of the story and motivation behind making it.

Previous Books from The Wonder Story Series:

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