Maniac Magee Lesson Plan

Spinelli, Jerry. Maniac Magee. New York: Little, Brown Young Readers, 1999. Print.

Maniac Magee Lesson Plan

Grade Level: 5-6

Content Standards:

• Reading and Responding 1.1  Students use appropriate strategies before, during and after reading in order to construct meaning.
• Reading and Responding 1.2 Students interpret, analyze and evaluate text in order to extend understanding and appreciation.
• Synthesize using multiple strategies/multiple sources for new insight, e.g., Visualizing, Think-Aloud, Question-Answer Relationship, List-Group-Label.
• Determine the importance of ideas (main ideas, details and themes) in text.
• Make inferences based on implicit and explicit information in the text;  provide justification for those inferences.

Student Learning Objective(s):

• Students will use before, during, and after reading strategies to comprehend the novel.
• Students will make text-to-text, text-to-world, and text-to-self connections while reading Maniac Magee.
• Students will ask questions about the theme and deeper meaning of the text.
• Students will be able to give concrete definitions and examples of literary terms such as similes, metaphors, and symbolism.

Assessment: Students will be assessed through discussion and written response. During literary discussions, the teacher will spend time with each group to make sure they are on task and making connections to the text. Students should be finding concrete examples of literary terms and the charts will be assessed for this. The literary discussions should be meaningful and students should be finding the deeper meaning of the text. The writing response should be assessed for the student’s opinion, evidence and examples from the text to support the opinion, and the incorporation of literary terms.

Materials/Resources:

• Maniac Magee by, Jerry Spinelli
• Chart paper
• Writer’s Journals
• Story Maps                             

 Learning Activities:

• Whole class instruction on metaphors, similes and symbolism.
• Students will break up into small groups and read assigned chapters, which they will then have a literary discussion on.
• Students will complete a writing prompt in their journals independently

Lesson Development:

Prior to reading the text, explicit instruction will be given on literary terms: similes, metaphors, and symbolism. These terms should be defined and guided with examples. It should be explained why these terms are important in both reading and writing. Students should be encouraged to give examples of their own and explain why they chose these examples. At this point in time, the book Maniac Magee can be introduced and the teacher can point out that there are several examples of literary terms within the book and students should find examples while they are reading. Later they will be composing their own writing response and will be expected to use the literary terms they learned within their writing.

Students will be broken up into groups and assigned certain chapters of Maniac Magee to read. On the day that their chapters are due, they will meet in their groups and have literary discussions. As a group, they will use graphic organizers such as story maps and character sketches to guide their reading. After discussing direct reading, groups will discuss inferential questions. They will look for the deeper meaning of their chapters and make inferences based on what they have read. At the end of their discussion, students will write examples of similes, metaphors, and symbolism that they found in their chapters on large chart paper. These examples will be used as a reference when students compose their writing response.

The final aspect of this lesson is a written response. When all the small groups have finished reading the text, all students will be expected to respond to a sample writing prompt in their writers journals. A possible writing prompt is: Describe the legendary acts that Jeffery Magee performs. How do these acts impact Jeffery? How do they impact the people that he encounters along his journey? Use examples from the text to support your ideas. Students will also be expected to incorporate the metaphors, similes, and symbolism they previously found in their small groups.

Closure: To wrap up the lesson, students can rejoin the class in a final discussion, using their writing prompts as guides. Students should be encouraged to share what they have written and compare it to the writing of their classmates.

Sidenote: This lesson plan is a work in progress and will be edited and revised.