HW Mr. Padilla 4.5.16

Homework:

Parents/guardians, please assist your child with today’s homework.

Focus: What inspired Walter Dean Myers to write Monster?

Part 1

*In the beginning, there was a boy. A distracted, disruptive boy — a bad boy, his teachers said. A tall, athletic boy who fought with other kids and threw books around the classroom and talked when he wasn’t supposed to. A boy who stumbled over his words but moved with perfect grace on the basketball court. A boy who read voraciously — Mark Twain, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Samuel Coleridge, Charles Dickens, Dylan Thomas, Honoré de Balzac, James Joyce — even after he dropped out of Stuyvesant High School in New York. A boy whose questing intelligence was engaged in a long and complicated conversation with the books he read, books that made him feel more real than his real life did but that were also silent about black boys like him.

**In the beginning, there was a boy. A distracted, disruptive boy — a bad boy, his teachers said. A tall, athletic boy who fought with other kids and threw books around the classroom and talked when he wasn’t supposed to. A boy who stumbled over his words but moved with perfect grace on the basketball court. A boy who read voraciously — Mark Twain,…Charles Dickens… — even after he dropped out of Stuyvesant High School in New York. A boy whose…intelligence was engaged in …conversation with the books he read, books that made him feel more real than his real life did but that were also silent about black boys like him. 

***In the beginning, there was a boy. A distracted,..bad boy, his teachers said. A tall, athletic boy who fought with other kids and threw books around the classroom and talked when he wasn’t supposed to. A boy who stumbled over his words but moved with…grace on the basketball court. A boy who read voraciously — Mark Twain,…Charles Dickens… — even after he dropped out of….High School…A boy whose…was engaged in …conversation with the books he read, books that made him feel more real than his real life did but that were also silent about black boys like him. 

Option 1:  Base response on today’s reading and class discussion.

Why do you think Walter Dean Myers wrote Monster?  Do you think his personal life had something to with him writing the novel?  Do you think people turn out the way they do because of how they grew up? Explain.

Option 2: Base response on today’s reading and class discussion.

Explain how Walter Dean Myers used to be when he was in school. How did he behave?

What was one strength and one weakness he had?

Even though he loved to read, what was one problem he had with books?

Why do you think he wrote Monster? No right or wrong answer.

Option 3: Base response on today’s reading:

Describe how Walter behaved in school at the beginning?

What caused Walter problems?

What was he really good at?

What was one problem with the books he read? 

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