1. Chris Crutcher Group Project Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes Stacy Tarrango Kristen Harris Kelly Rogers

4. Today, there are very few teen novels that focus on relationships along with real world issues, but Chris Crutcher does an excellent job of addressing both in his book, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes . When looking at the cover illustration and the title on this book, many readers may not find it as “eye catching” as other teen novels and teachers may ask themselves, “How can I grab my students’ attention and help them become excited to read this book?” Character comparisons would be an excellent way to keep the reader involved during the reading of this book. The students’ would be given the choice of which two characters they would like to use for the comparison and contrast activity. Attributes of each character would be written down on sticky notes while they read. This idea is similar to Beers “ ABC’s of Comparing and Contrasting ” with the use of a comparison and contrast chart. This activity would help engage and connect each reader with the characters in the story as they read. The only drawback to this activity is that the students’ may not be as interested in the other characters in the story that they have not chosen. Additionally, since this story has a slower beginning it may be difficult for them to find character attributes in the very beginning of the book. A modification to this strategy is that they would be able to write down their predictions of what they think the characters’ will be like in the story and see if their predictions are correct as continue to read through the story. Many times in school teachers feel the need to provide their students with a strong base of quality literature. This literature usually consists of works by acclaimed authors and subjects of contemporary or classic appeal. Although, as we have experienced ourselves, these are amazing works of literature, but there are also many other genres that young adults can learn from. One genre in particular, the problem novels, are ones that have been appearing in the hands of young adults in more recent years. As future teachers, it is important for us to help our students become better readers, and lifelong readers and learners. One way to accomplish this is to allow our students to learn from the novels they enjoy reading; problem novels. In class we have been reading Chris Crutcher’s Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes which is one of many of the popular “problem novels”. We can use novels like this to encourage reluctant readers into lifelong readers. When students can read books that they can relate to they are more likely to enjoy them and want to continue reading. As future teachers, we can take advantage of this and plan our lessons to accommodate these students. One strategy that can be used when teaching a book like Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes is to write reflections. Problem novels are what they sound like; ones that contain a great deal of problems. Books like these are ones that teachers can use to their advantage by having students write their opinions and how they feel about the topic being presented in the book. This can be done in the form of a reflection of the book as a whole, and then a separate reflection about a specific topic or event in the book. We chose this book to be used with eight graders, therefore we could also turn this lesson into a journal writing process where they would share their opinions in a journal and as teachers we would write back to them by posing questions and encouraging their thinking. This would be done carefully and the opinions of the teacher would never be made apparent. Books like Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes are ones that can be used in the classroom to help reluctant and achieving readers to learn more about popular topics and how to form their own opinions on those hot topics. Graphic organizers would be another tool to help students become engaged in what they are reading. A graphic organizer is very versatile for Staying Fat for Sarah Bynes , however, the ideas of closely looking at one character would be the most beneficial. Take Sarah Byrnes, for example, and make a T-Chart. Within this chart make two lists, one of the good things that she does, and make one bad list of all the things that she does. This will allow event the most reluctant reader to really take interest in what they are reading. No matter which tool we as teachers choose to use to get our students engaged in reading is not that important, what is important is that we are getting the students to read at all. For whatever reason, more and more teens are losing interest in reading. We feel that this book though would really be a great choice to give to students to read because it is so versatile.