A Guide For Using Maniac Magee In The Classroom

Presents lesson plans, curriculum connections, activities, vocabulary help, a related-reading list, and other materials for teaching "Maniac Magee" by Jerry Spinelli.

A Newbery Medal winning modern classic about a racially divided small town and a boy who runs. Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee might have lived a normal life if a freak accident hadn't made him an orphan. After living with his unhappy and uptight aunt and uncle for eight years, he decides to run--and not just run away, but run. This is where the myth of Maniac Magee begins, as he changes the lives of a racially divided small town with his amazing and legendary feats.

Teaching literature unit based on the popular children's story, Maniac Magee.

Explore the many obstacles that Maniac Magee encounters in this eye-opening book. Students will learn to analyze prejudices and other challenges that Magee faces by completing fun, challenging activities and lessons provided in this digital instructional guide for literature. This e-book guide is the perfect tool for teachers to aid students in analyzing and comprehending this story. Appealing and challenging cross-curricular lessons and activities incorporate research-based literacy skills to help students become thorough readers. These lessons and activities work in conjunction with the text to teach students how to analyze and comprehend story elements in multiple ways, practice close reading and text-based vocabulary, determine meaning through text-dependent questions, and much more.

In this State Standards-aligned Literature Kit™, we divide the novel by chapters or sections and feature reading comprehension and vocabulary questions. In every chapter, we include Before You Read and After You Read questions. The Before You Read activities prepare students for reading by setting a purpose for reading. They stimulate background knowledge and experience, and guide students to make connections between what they know and what they will learn. The After You Read activities check students' comprehension and extend their learning. Students are asked to give thoughtful consideration of the text through creative and evaluative short-answer questions and journal prompts. Also included are writing tasks, graphic organizers, comprehension quiz, test prep, word search, and crossword to further develop students' critical thinking and writing skills, and analysis of the text. About the Novel: Maniac Magee is a Newbery Medal winning story about a young homeless boy running through town and the different people he meets along the way. Orphaned at the age of three, Jeffrey Magee runs away from his Aunt and Uncle eight years later. He finds himself in Two Mills, Pennsylvania, where he realizes the town is split in half—the East End and the West End. Running his way through the town, Magee learns of the hatred and racism that separates the two sides. Along the way, he meets a wide range of interesting characters, and even develops a legend for himself, earning him the nickname "Maniac". He endures hardships while moving from place to place, eventually finding a home in a buffalo pen at the zoo. Maniac Magee is a brave story about racism and homelessness. All of our content is aligned to your State Standards and are written to Bloom's Taxonomy.

He wasn't born with the name Maniac Magee. He came into this world named Jeffrey Lionel Magee, but when his parents died and his life changed, so did his name. And Maniac Magee became a legend. Even today kids talk about how fast he could run; about how he hit an inside-the-park "frog" homer; how no knot, no matter how snarled, would stay that way once he began to untie it. But the thing Maniac Magee is best known for is what he did for the kids from the East Side and those from the West Side.

Suggests activities to be used in the classroom to accompany the reading of Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli.

These post-reading activities for Maniac Magee allow students to share their understanding of the characters, plots, and settings of the book. They have opportunities to write, draw, and perform based on what they've learned.