A Long Way from Chicago Book Club Focused on Perspective

A Long Way from Chicago Book Club Focused on Perspective

Use A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck to strengthen your students' comprehension skills, build their vocabulary, and teach them about the ways an author can use perspective to tell stories.

A Long Way from Chicago is a series of short stories about the summers two children spend with their grandmother in rural Illinois. Full of hilarious and sometimes shocking stories, this award-winning novel is an ideal anchor text for Book Club discussions focused on character perspective and the ways in which the characters' perspectives grow and change with each passing summer.

By following the minilessons included in this book club resource set, you'll provide students with the opportunity to track changes in perspective over time, determine pivotal moments that change perspective, and make inferences to identify a character's perspective.

  • Included in this resource
  • Lesson plans for 9 book club meetings focused on Perspective
  • Chapter by chapter discussion questions and key vocabulary
  • Book Club calendar
  • Conversation prompts
  • Student self-evaluations forms
  • Reading response board
  • Culminating activity
  • Instructional focus assessment, answer key, and rubric
  • Note: This set of instructional resources is for use with the book A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck. A copy of the book is not included in this set of resources.
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Use A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck to strengthen your students' comprehension skills, build their vocabulary, and teach them about the ways an author can use perspective to tell stories.

A Long Way from Chicago is a series of short stories about the summers two children spend with their grandmother in rural Illinois. Full of hilarious and sometimes shocking stories, this award-winning novel is an ideal anchor text for Book Club discussions focused on character perspective and the ways in which the characters' perspectives grow and change with each passing summer.

By following the minilessons included in this book club resource set, you'll provide students with the opportunity to track changes in perspective over time, determine pivotal moments that change perspective, and make inferences to identify a character's perspective.

  • Included in this resource
  • Lesson plans for 9 book club meetings focused on Perspective
  • Chapter by chapter discussion questions and key vocabulary
  • Book Club calendar
  • Conversation prompts
  • Student self-evaluations forms
  • Reading response board
  • Culminating activity
  • Instructional focus assessment, answer key, and rubric
  • This set of instructional resources is for use with the book A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck. A copy of the book is not included in this set of resources.
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Book Club resources

The management resources include a Book Club Calendar, conversation prompts, Student Self-Evaluation forms, Reading Response Board (with optional Common Core alignment), and an Expectations for Book Club anchor chart.

The instructional overview includes instructional background for point of view, instructional objectives for each of the Book Club meetings, and a list of the materials and preparation necessary to A Long Way from Chicago Book Club.

The Book Club for A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck focuses on tracking changes in a character's perspective across a longer text. This first meeting introduces the concept of perspective to the readers.

During the second book club meeting for A Long Way from Chicago, students will work to notice examples of the main character's changing perspective of his grandmother.

Author Richard Peck uses pivotal events in A Long Way from Chicago to change the perspective of the main character. During the third Book Club meeting, students will use a graphic organizer to track their thinking about Joey's perspective of his grandmother.

The fourth Book Club meeting focuses on the ways in which historical perspective affects the characters in A Long Way from Chicago. Students will learn in order to really understand Joey’s perspective you have to consider his life and the rules he had to live by during the early 20th century.

Author Richard Peck changes the main character's perspective by using the influence of other characters. This Book Club meeting focuses on finding examples of this literary device in the text.

When readers use their prior knowledge and information from the text, they are able to make inferences that deepen their understanding of what is happening in the story. In the sixth Book Club meeting for A Long Way from Chicago, students will examine the ways in which the characters make inferences and how those inferences affect their perspective.

As students progress through Richard Peck's novel, they are exposed to a variety of changing perspectives. This Book Club meeting will invite students to consider how Mary Alice and Joey's perspective of their grandmother has changed as they've gotten older. The included graphic organizer will readers track their observations as they continue to read A Long Way from Chicago.

This Book Club meeting for A Long Way from Chicago Book Club will support students as they analyze the relationship between the author's message and the reader's perspective of Joey's grandma. Included in this meeting are prompts to support a discussion about how and why perspectives change throughout the novel.

The final Book Club meeting for A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck looks at how and why Joey's perspective of his grandmother changed over the course of the text. Readers are further encouraged to make a text-to-self connection and apply the same thinking to a time when their perspective about something was changed.

Use this six-question assessment to determine whether or not students understand the key concepts associated with perspective.
More about this resource
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Read the Book
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Teacher Guides
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Standard Alignment
Book Title:
A Long Way from Chicago
Book Author:
Richard Peck
Grade Level:
5
Genre(s):
Historical Fiction
F&P Guided Reading Level:
V
DRA Level:
50
Reading Recovery Level:
Theme(s):
Adventure, Award Winners, Family, History, Summer
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CCSS
TEKS
Common Core Alignment: RL.5.1, RL.5.2, RL.5.3, RL.5.4, RL.5.5, RL.5.6, RL.5.7, RL.5.9, RL.5.10, RF.5.3, RF.5.4, SL.5.1a, SL.5.1b, SL.5.1c, W.5.8, W.5.9, L.5.4a, L.5.5, L.5.6
Vocabulary Connections: L.5.4a, L.5.5, L.5.6
TEKS Alignment: 5.1C, 5.1A, 5.1D, 5.6A, 5.6B, 5.6C, 5.6D, 5.6E, 5.6F, 5.6G, 5.6H, 5.6I, 5.7A, 5.7B, 5.7C, 5.7D, 5.7E, 5.7F, 5.7G, 5.8A, 5.8B, 5.8C, 5.8D, 5.9A, 5.9B, 5.9D(i), 5.9D(ii), 5.9D(iii), 5.9E(i), 5.9E(ii), 5.9E(iii), 5.9F, 5.10A, 5.10B, 5.10C, 5.10D, 5.10E, 5.10F, 5.10G, 5.13A, 5.13C, 5.13E, 5.13H
Vocabulary Connections: 5.7E, 5.7F, 5.3A, 5.3B
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