Literature: Important Note about the Novel

Last week we introduced two new literature books that the students will be reading for the next couple of weeks. The books, War Comes to Willy Freeman by James and Christopher Collier and The Fighting Ground by Avi are both historical fictions books that center on the Revolutionary War, our unit of study in social studies.


Many of the places and characters in the stories are real, but they story itself is fictional. The Collier brothers do extensive research and attempt to make their books and character as much like people of that day. They have tried to give something of a flavor of how an uneducated black person may have spoken then. The ideas of people from that time are also expressed in the reading; in particular the use of the word "nigger." It is NOT intended at all to be offensive or used in an insulting manner, but the authors use it show how it is commonly used during this historical period of time.

We welcome and encourage parent(s) to read the story along with your student. We will be starting most of the reading assignments here in class to get the students a head start on their nightly assignments. For EACH chapter, they will need to write a chapter title, brief summary that encapsulates the main ideas of the chapter, as well as a reasonable prediction for the next chapter. We have worked a lot in class about how to make a good prediction by using evidence and events from the previous chapter as indicators for what could happen next.

Before the students even began their reading, we had a discussion about the usage of different terms and the dialect of the books and why the authors felt that it was important to their writing.

For additional information on the authors and their books, go to these links:
http://mcelmeel.com/writing/collier.html or
http://www.avi-writer.com


Thanks!
Amy Lockhart, Curt Nielsen and Kim Miller