How to Use Mom Made Us Write This in the Summer & GIVEAWAY!

I'm very excited to share with you how we have been using Ali Maier's book, Mom Made Us Write This in the Summer, throughout the last few weeks of school.  As you may remember, I first mentioned this book right before Christmas break.  This book is about twins, Maggie and Max, who are challenged by their mom to write 12 journal entries together during the Summer.  The twins analyze a different event, situation, or activity for each chapter (or journal entry) which makes for a great book to focus on analyzing, comparing, or contrasting perspectives.  You can read my initial review here.

Here are my suggestions for using the book in your classroom:

Ways to Read in the Classroom:
- Provide individual copies for students to read independently.
- Read with a partner (one student reads Maggie's part while the other reads Max's.)
- Read whole class (teacher reads main text and chooses a student to read Maggie's comments and another to read Max's.)
- Project for the class to see so they can follow along with all Maggie and Max's commentary.

Using the Book to Teach Comprehension Strategies:

- Analyze characters and setting.

- Locate humor and descriptive details within the text.

- Create a list of Maggie and Max's character traits.

Initially, I recorded every student suggestion.  Then, students looked back, and debated whether or not each character trait really fit the characters.  If not, we crossed them out, and added a better fitting trait.

- Analyze perspectives.

- Compare and contrast Maggie and Max's experiences, perspectives, likes, and dislikes

Below, students compared and contrasted Maggie and Max's experiences at a hotel.

Journal Writing
- Analyze the genre of journal writing.
- Use this book as an anchor text to model positive characteristics of good journal writing.
- Use this book to launch an in-class journal writing center where students write back and forth to one another in the same fashion as Maggie and Max.
- Launch an at-home journal writing activity over an extended break (Christmas, February, April, Summer, etc...)

Want to snag a copy of this book for your classroom?  Enter using Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Lastly, be sure to check out Ali Maier's website for more resources and information!