Save Me a Seat

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. How might a person be treated for Being Different? In what ways may someone’s difference be a strong or beneficial characteristic?

Teaching Suggestion: Consider having students brainstorm ideas before settling into a quickwrite. This helps students who are struggling to think of ideas and gives others the chance to begin fleshing out their own thoughts. It may help to share examples from society or history. Writing on the whiteboard or under a document camera while students are also actively writing may help model the process, as can the resources below.

• “Encouraging Middle School Students to Embrace Differences” from Edutopia provides helpful tips and strategies to help students with identity.
• “15 Ordinary People Who Changed History” from Reader’s Digest gives various stories about people who stood out and changed the course of history by being or acting differently.

2. What kinds of bullying do students observe in school or society? What factors cause bullying to be more Prevalent? How might administrators, teachers, and parents help prevent this?

Teaching Suggestion: Bullying can be a difficult concept to discuss. It may help to set up some norms or agreements with your students before engaging in these heavy themes, such as “listen actively” or “respond respectively.” Furthermore, difficult experiences may come to light as students open up; it may help to remind students that you are a mandated reporter.

In addition, to help prepare your students for the novel, you may want to provide the novel’s themes. From there, students may annotate passages during the reading that relate to the themes.

• “Stop Bullying” is a government website with plentiful resources regarding bullying, laws and policies, statistics, etc.
• “Bullying” from the CDC website provides statistics, warning signs, and possible solutions to bullying.

Short Activity

Take a look around the classroom at the different posters on the walls. Each poster includes 1 of the following phrases related to the novel’s themes:

1) Assumptions can be harmful.

2) Bullying is prevalent in schools.

3) It’s always best to fit in.

4) It’s better to be different than to conform.

5) There is more bullying online than in person

6) Sometimes we can judge a book by its cover.

Spend time reflecting on each phrase for 10-15 minutes. On each poster, use a sticky note to write 1-3 sentences agreeing or disagreeing with the statement. Be sure to include why you reached this conclusion. When possible, include an example.

Teaching Suggestion: It would be helpful for students who finish early to have an objective in place as they wait for their peers. For example, you may ask them to continue circulating and write down a response to someone else’s answer. It may also help to have a timer projected on the screen or somewhere in clear sight, so students adjust accordingly.

• This “Gallery Walk” article by Edutopia gives many different strategies for conducting a gallery walk with students in the classroom.
• “Stereotypes for Kids” is a 1-minute video defining and discussing stereotypes.

Differentiation Suggestion: Some of the words included in these resources and in the posted ideas may not be known by all students, especially English learners. Consider providing definitions along with a paired image on the whiteboard or projector screen for students who need further guidance. The following words may be defined as follows:

1) Assumptions: ideas that people accept as true without proof

2) Stereotypes: popular but unsubstantiated beliefs about a particular type of person, place, or thing

3) Bullying: purposefully and consistently harming or intimidating another person

4) Perspectives: points of view

5) Conform: to act in a way that is expected and/or acceptable by a group, regardless of personal preference

6) Prevalent: common and popular

In addition, students who struggle with fine motor skills might type their answers instead of writing them, or might be paired with a partner.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the novel.

• What parts of your culture or family traditions do you connect with your identity? Consider the food you eat, the way you dress, the holidays you celebrate, and family time or gatherings. How is your culture a part of who you are?

Teaching Suggestion: This prompt relates to the theme Being Different. It can sometimes be difficult for students to identify parts of their culture since it is ingrained in their lives. As such, it may help to write categories such as Food, Dress, Holidays, Language, and Traditions/Family Time on the whiteboard or under a document camera and add your own details. It may also help to remind students to just share what they are comfortable with, since culture and family traditions can be personal.

• “What is Culture, According to Kids?” is a 2-minute video discussing culture from the perspective of young children.
• “What Is Culture?” is a webpage from Frontiers for Young Minds that explains cultures and provides examples of different aspects of cultural groups such as language diversity, and more.

Differentiation Suggestion: It may help to create a graphic organizer instead of a freeform quick write to answer this question. Consider creating a table that includes categories such as music, language, religion (optional), food, clothing, holidays, hobbies, ethnicity, etc. You may print this out for students as a handout, or you could create a shared document for students to fill in together.