Okay for Now
Okay for Now
By: Gary D. Schmidt
Copyright: 2013
Published by: HMH Books for Young Readers
Children’s Choice Reading List 2012
(Advanced Readers)
Genre: Realistic Fiction
My rating:
Grade Level Equivalent: 2.4
Interest Level: Grades 5-8
Lexile Measure: 850L
Fourteen-year-told Doug just moved to a new town with no
friends and an unpleasant older brother.
As Doug starts to become more familiar with the town and tries to become
more than the “skinny thug” that everyone knows him as, he starts to find
himself after meeting an unlikely friend.
With his friend, Lil, he has the courage to face his abusive father and
help his brother with his return from the war.
With the help of Lil and the public library, Doug is able to fit in and
get to know the townspeople and find inspiration through drawing and his love
for birds.
Suggested Delivery:
Read aloud,
small group discussions
Words to Describe book:
Courageous
Hopeful
Inspirational
Creative
Humorous
Useful Electronic Resources:
This educator
guide created for this novel is very helpful and provides various lessons and
activities that can be used while reading this novel. Along with the loads of discussion questions,
this guide provides projects and activities in reading/language arts domain as
well as art, geography/ map and music domains.
This guide is a well-rounded tool that can be used to introduce and
creatively assess your students while keeping them motivated with different
activities in many different domains.
Another resource
to reference that provides different lesson ideas in a variety of domains,
including math, science, social studies and vocabulary. The activities are well thought out and ask
students to expand beyond the text itself by researching or building on their
prior knowledge. The lessons are also
connected to the CCSS and are a very useful and helpful resource for
teachers.
This resource is
Gary D. Schmidt’s webpage that shows all of Gary’s other books as well as Okay for Now. This resource also provides a video
interview with the author regarding his novel.
Students can explore his website to find more books written by this
author if they enjoyed Okay for Now.
Teaching Opportunities:
Key Vocabulary:
Abridgment (99)-
A shortened version of a larger work
Prudent (124)-
Acting with or showing care and thought for the future
Soliloquized
(130)- Talk at length to yourself
Tremendous
(223)- Very great in amount, scale, or intensity
Percolating
(249)- Filter gradually thorough a porous surface or substance
Rendezvous
(151)- A meeting at an agreed time and place, typically between two people
Reading Strategy Suggestions to increase
literal and/ or inferential comprehension:
Pre-Reading
Strategy
Audubon Bird Opinion (Page 2- Pre-Reading Activity)
Students will
look at various Audubon prints and write what they think about each of the
illustrations about the birds.
Throughout the novel, they can reference their opinions and see how
closely they match the opinion Doug has about the birds. This activity helps to give students a visual
and more context to work with when they read through the book.
During-Reading
Strategy
Read-Write-Pair-Share-
Students read a passage, write about it (or answer a question), find a partner
and share what they each wrote about.
The students can
use this while reading when students have trouble responding to certain
questions or to help start a discussion with a small group or whole-group.
Post-Reading
Strategy
Students will
Character Map to map out the character of Doug starting when he first came to
the new town and his attitude and relationships at the end of the novel using
specific details and evidence in the text.
Writing Activity
Students will
respond to the discussion question regarding narrator:
The story is
told from Doug’s point of view. The
reader knows only what Doug is telling him.
Would you say Doug is a reliable narrator? Why or why not? Use evidence from the text to support your
answer.
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