By: Kate Dicamillo
Illustrated By: K.G. Campbell
Hello everyone, my next big read may just have been one of my favorite books thus far. Flora and Ulysses is a cute engaging story about a girl obsesses with comics and a squirrel who got super powers from being sucked up in a vacuum. To be honest, I never thought I would enjoy this book as much as I did and only gave it a shot because it was the 2014 Newbery winner and because it involved superheroes which I absolutely love to read about.
This book is a great read for any student who you're tryinng to pull out of graphic novels because it has the feel of a graphic novel but the qualities of a novel. Not to mention it's a quick read so students won't feel overwhelmed by the length of the book. If there's any child who is hesitant to read this book like I was just have them read the first 20 or so pages and I can almost guarantee you they will be hooked into the reading and want to continue reading. Between the extremely short chapters and engaging black and white comics illustrating the main events and characters of the novel and even the silliness of the story and characters made this an extremely fun and engaging read.
Lexile Score: 520
Reccomended Grade Level: Grade 4
Lexile Score: 520
Reccomended Grade Level: Grade 4
Before the Reading
A great way to introduce them to the text is by asking the students what their definition of a superhero is, and if they think a person can be a superhero without having superpowers. Have the students write a short essay with their response in which they explain their reasoning for their answer with examples, maybe a paragraph long each. Then have a class discussion on the questions and the role of a superhero in both a story and real life.
During the Reading
A fun activity that will both test their explicit comprehension of the text is having them have a "sketchbook" in which they can draw pictures from the test that represents their own comic strip of what happened. The only requirement would be that it contained at least 5 images from a scene in the text an that they do it after every reading. This can be a great way for students to have some fun drawing and coloring in the text while also requiring them to look back and find a scene they want to draw and encouraging them to picture what the scene would look like if drawn out. Plus, the artistic quality doesn't matter as long as the teacher can tell who each character is and what's going on. Also, the student's can't re-draw one of the comic strips that are already in the text.
After the Reading
Once students complete the reading have them go back in the text and find their five favorite scenes from the text, these sections can be found anywhere in the text as long as there is one from the beginning, the middle, and the end. The students then will write a poem just like Ulysses that describes the meaning and importance of that section. The poem must be at least six lines long and should explain what took place in the designated sentence. This can engage students in different formats of writing and give them a better understanding of how to approach and interpret poetry.
Great Electronic Resources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQymCUPGl0Q
This is a really interesting video of an interview of the author of the book Kate DiCamillo which gives a great clue to the students of the behind the scenes of writing this story.
http://blabberize.com
This is a hilarious and fun website where you can make pictures talk, I've included an example below but it's a perfect website for this book because it's one of the few novels where we have illustrations of all the main characters. You can even have them do a retelling of the book as one of the characters or read their poem as one of the characters. They can d group work and act out scenes, the options are endless and I may have gone a little overboard with mine but it was definitely worth it :).
Key words to go over in class
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