1、Student Guidefor the novel Muchachoby LouAnne Johnsoncopyright 2007 LouAnne JohnsonAll rights reserved. If you would like to reproduce any of the materials included in this guide, please contact the author via the email link on her website: .Student Guide-Johnson-1INTRODUCTIONHello! Welcome to the w
2、orld of Eddie Corazon, the narrator of Muchacho. I hope you will enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. (If you hate reading, hold on to your books. Ill talk about that in a minute). First, I want to talk about writing in your journal. The students who were portrayed in the movie D
3、angerous Minds wrote in their journals every day in my classes. They had a good time writing about their thoughts and opinions, their hopes and their dreams; I hope you do, too.YOUR WRITING VOICEHave you ever answered the telephone and immediately recognized the voice of a friend or relative? Thats
4、because everybody has a distinctive voice. Your friends know what your voice sounds like when you talk - high or low, loud or soft, fast or slow, throaty or nasal. You have a writing voice that is just as distinctive as your speaking voice. You may write quickly or slowly. You may use lots of adject
5、ivesor just plain, simple language that gets directly to the point. Writing a note to a friend is easy and feels natural. But when it comes to school assignments, you may not like writing. Suddenly it doesnt feel natural. It feels like work. You worry about writing correctly or writing in the style
6、that you think your teachers will like.DONT WORRYIn your journal about Muchacho, dont worry about writing. Dont try to sound like a professor or a textbook or the kid sitting next to you! Just write the way you talk and writing will be easy. It will flow out of you just as easily as conversation. Im
7、agine that a friend asks you what you did over the weekend. You dont stop and edit your comments. You just talk. Do the same thing with your writing in your journal. If your teacher is using my teachers guide, then spelling and grammar wont be the big issues. Your teacher will be most interested in
8、your ideas and opinions. Youll have plenty of time to correct grammar and spelling later on.READING READING READING. Reading isnt supposed to be work. Reading is supposed to be entertaining, informative or thought-provoking. It isnt supposed to be a chore or a test. It isnt a competition, either. So
9、me people read quickly they also walk and talk quickly. That doesnt make them smarter. it just means that their internal motors are faster than some other peoples motors. Faster isnt always better. In fact, some things are better enjoyed slowly - like ice cream, kisses, and.Reading is a skill, just
10、like playing basketball or piano or riding a bike or swimming or training a dog or skateboarding or skiing. You cant do any of those things well unless you practice. But after lots of practice, those things feel easy and comfortable. Student Guide-Johnson-2If you hate reading, something made you hat
11、e reading. You werent born hating to read. Little kids will eventually figure out how to read if we leave them alone with books because reading is like figuring out a secret code. Its interesting. But, unfortunately, we dont let kids learn when they are ready. They have to go to school and learn to
12、read whether they are ready or not. And then the problems start. You know what those problems are:Everybody reads faster than you do, so you feel stupid.Everybody else seems to understand more than you do, so you feel stupid.You have to read books and stories that dont interest you, so you feel bore
13、d.You have to take tests on the boring books and stories, so you feel angry or stupid.The teacher makes you read out loud, and you feel stupidReading gives you a headache, but nobody believes you when you tell them so now you wonder whether they are mean or you are crazy. You avoid reading.You think
14、 of all the years of school and reading ahead of you- you feel depressed.You start to hate reading and the more you hate it the less you read. The less you read, the worse your grades get because school revolves around reading.Do any of those scenarios sound familiar? If so, then you need to back up
15、 and figure out where things went wrong with reading and you. There is nothing wrong with your brain or you wouldnt be reading this paragraph right now. You can learn. You are an intelligent human being. So, lets take a look at the way people learn to read.YOUR BRAIN KNOWS HOW TO LEARNHow do you lea
16、rn to ride a bicycle? First, you see other people riding bikes. You know how it supposed to look. It doesnt look hard. It looks like fun. You see that you have to hold onto the handlebars, push the pedals with your feet, and steer the bike. Then you try it. You fall down. You get on the bike again.
17、You go a few feet. You fall down. Over and over again.You dont quit trying to ride the bike. You dont feel stupid. You know its possible to ride a bike and it cant be that hard because so many other kids are riding bikes. So, you get back on the bike. You realize that you have to learn how to balanc
18、e your body and the bicycle. You make some adjustments in the way you sit and lean and move the handlebars. You go a few feet farther than you did before and you fall down again. Maybe somebody older helps you out by holding the bicycle upright. Maybe you just keep trying. But eventually, you ride f
19、or a while without falling down. It feels wonderful. It feels comfortable. You are riding a bicycle. And then you fall down!Now, your brain really goes to work. It says, “I know what riding a bike is supposed to feel like. I am going to keep trying different actions and making adjustments until I fi
20、gure out how to ride a bicycle without falling down every time.” And it does. It may take you 10 tries or 100 tries, but eventually your brain figures out how to ride a bike.Student Guide-Johnson-3READING IS LIKE RIDING A BIKEThe same process happens when you learn to read. You hear other people rea
21、d. Maybe they read you funny little books. Reading looks easy. You try it. You make mistakes. You make lots of mistakes. But you keep trying. Eventually, you read one sentence correctly. Your brain creates a picture of how that feels. It sets a standard for reading and it makes adjustments until it
22、figures out how to read properly. It knows that reading well involves three things it sounds natural, it feels comfortable and it makes sense. The problems start when people interfere with your brain and its learning process. They teach you how to sound out words. They try to make you read faster. T
23、hey interrupt and ask you questions to make sure you understand what youre reading. Maybe they teach you phonics or some other method of learning to identify words. They tell you not to point at the words. Or they tell you to point at the words. They tell you to skip over the big words. Or they tell
24、 you to sound out the big words. Your brain gets confused. You start to hate reading. And then reading becomes a battleground between you and your parents, or you and your teachers, or you and yourself. HOW TO BECOME A BETTER READERYour school probably has a reading specialist who has been trained t
25、o help people who have reading problems. If you are working with a specialist or a tutor, and it is helping you, then just keep on with that program. But if youve been working and working and you still hate reading, then I have some suggestions for you to try.#1. CHECK THE LIGHTSFirst, ask your teac
26、her for a transparency - blue, purple, red, gray and yellow are good colors to try. If your teacher doesnt have any transparencies, use a clear tinted report cover that you can buy at any office supply store. Just make sure its clean and there arent any creases in it. Place the transparency over the
27、 page and see if it feels more comfortable to look at the words. Yes? Then you might have scotopic sensitivity your eyes are sensitive to light. Millions of people have light sensitivity and many of them have reading problems. Most schools have fluorescent lights and those lights are the worst for p
28、eople who have sensitive eyes. Ask your teacher, your parents, or one of your school counselors to get you a transparency for reading. Or you can use the Internet to visit the websites or where you can read about light sensitivity and find products that may help you. In the meantime, try wearing a
29、 hat or sunglasses while youre reading. Try to find a place that has natural daylight. See if that helps.Student Guide-Johnson-4#2. FIND SOMETHING TRULY INTERESTINGSecond, find something interesting to read. Go to the library or a bookstore and look. Take your transparency with you, if you need to.
30、Nobody will notice and if they do, they will be interested. Maybe they have light sensitivity, too! So, you will have a chance to help somebody else.Okay. Were looking for books. Dont give up. If you dont like the stories and poems that you read in school, then try looking in the nonfiction section.
31、 Fiction means made up. Novels and plays and short stories are fiction. The people in those books are not real and the events in those books didnt really happen. Maybe you arent a fiction person. Nonfiction means not made up. Maybe youre a nonfiction sort of person. Nonfiction includes thousands of
32、subjects from auto mechanics to zebras, from basketball to outer space, from cooking to dinosaurs. You might enjoy reading biographies to learn about peoples lives.Take the time to keep looking, browsing for books. Ask other people what books they like and check them out. You might have to look at 1
33、00 books before you find one that speaks to YOU. But, eventually you will find something that you think is so interesting that you forget you are reading when you are reading it. Bingo! Thats your book.#3. PRACTICE READING BY YOURSELFNow that you have something you enjoy reading, you can focus on le
34、arning to read well. First, read a few sentences out loud. Do they sound like normal conversation? Does it feel comfortable? Does it make sense? Do you see a movie in your head of what youre reading? If so, then keep on reading. Dont worry about how fast you read. Dont worry about memorizing everyth
35、ing. Just read. The more you do it, the easier it gets.#4. PRACTICE READING WITH AN EXCELLENT READER(This advice is from a book called Read Right that has helped a lot of kids.)If it doesnt feel comfortable and doesnt sound like natural conversation when you read, then ask an excellent reader to rea
36、d a sentence for you. Listen to how they say the words. Read that same sentence out loud yourself. Ask your good reader whether you did a good job. Ask them not to lie to you. If your reading is not really excellent, the person should say so. They should read that sentence again. Then you read it. D
37、ont just mimic, look at the words as you read them. Eventually, you will be able to read that sentence well and your brain will now understand what excellent reading feels like! It will start creating the process that will eventually help you become a good reader. This may take some time, but it wil
38、l happen.If you dont have a friend or family member or teacher who can sit down and read with you, then go to the library and find a book on tape. Get the book itself and sit down someplace quiet where you can listen to a professional reader read the book to you. Play the tape and listen to a senten
39、ce. Read that sentence yourself, trying to sound like the professional reader. Student Guide-Johnson-5If you can record your own reading, that would be even better. If not, just keep practicing until it feels comfortable and easy to read that sentence correctly. Dont give up!If one method doesnt wor
40、k for you, then try another. Everybody has a unique brain, and a unique learning style. Just because somebody cant teach you doesnt mean you cant learn. It may mean that you dont learn that way that person teaches. But eventually you will find a match for the way you learn or you will create your ow
41、n way.RIGHT BRAIN? LEFT BRAIN?One more thought about thinking and then Ill shut up, I promise. Most people tend to be right-brain or left-brain dominant. That means they think more often with one hemisphere of their brain. School is a left-brain kind of place: analytical, logical, orderly. Art studi
42、os and music shops are right-brain kinds of places: creative, intuitive, imaginative. If you are a right-brain kind of person, you might not feel so intelligent when you are in school, unless you have learned to switch on your left-brain thinking. Heres an example of a right-brain word game: Look at
43、 the words eye, you, sea, tea. They all have something in common NOT their meanings. There is something similar about all of them.Only one of the following words shares that same common trait: them, can, jay, dew. Can you figure out which word from the second list has the same trait as all the words
44、 in the first list?The answer is “jay” because it sounds like a letter of the alphabet (j). Eye, you, sea, and tea also sound like letters of the alphabet when you say them (i, u, c, t).Heres another example. Look at the boxes below. Each one of them represents a common phrase or familiar saying suc
45、h as “flat broke” or “dead wrong.” The location and size of the words may give you clues. A B CDid you figure them out? If it was easy for you, you may be a right-brainer. (The answers are on the next page.but dont peek!)Student Guide-Johnson-6fivepigs pigs pigscof feeAnswers: A. high five B. three
46、little pigs C. coffee breakGOOGLE ITYou can read more about Right-Brain Left-Brain dominance on the Internet. If you are a right-brainer, you may be having trouble with subjects such as math and science. You arent dumb or weird. You just need to learn how to turn on that logical part of your brain.
47、There are breathing exercises and other things you can do. Research this I think youll find it interesting.And if you are a right-brain person, chances are high that you will blossom after you graduate from school where your creativity will be a huge plus instead of a problem. In the meantime, good
48、luck! And, as Eddie Corazon would say: Ay te watcho!Follow your dreams. If your friends dont support you in that - get new friends!Miss JJust for fun - heres a photo of Bogart the Wonder Dog reading Muchacho. He thinks its a doggone good book. Yuk yuk.Visit for links to more information and to find out about the kids who were portrayed in the movie Dangerous Minds. Student Guide-Johnson-7
