Front Desk, a book for middle grades by Kelly Tang, tells the story of 10 year old Mia and her family, immigrants to America who manage a motel in California. This novel study supports students as they wrestle with the challenges that the Tang family deals with as new arrivals to the land.
This cross-curricular novel study works well as a support to daily read-alouds, and includes the following components:
►Frontloading Activities: There are 2 activities to help introduce the themes of the book and activate prior knowledge: Tea Party and Value Cards. Choose one or both!
►Front Desk Flipbook: This 8 page flipbook allows students to reflect on their learning after daily read-aloud sessions. Topics include:
- Symbolism
- Secrets
- Money-Saving Tips (that Mia relates throughout the book)
- Initiative
- Idioms
- Language vs Math
- Roller Coaster of Life (plot summary)
- Public Service Poster Assignment
I have provided a sample sheet of answers for each of the 8 pages in the flipbook.
►Chapter Summaries: One or two sentence summaries of the important events in each chapter.
►Multiple Choice and Open Response Questions: There are four sets of question sheets, each with 2 multiple choice questions (covering parts of speech, capitalization, types of sentences, idioms, symbolism, interjections and comprehension). As well, each sheet has two open response questions dealing with character traits, inferences, author’s purpose, and other topics. Answer sheets are provided for all questions.
►Lessons: There are a variety of cross-curricular lessons that can be used in a whole-class or small group setting:
•Symbolism
•Classical Music
•Drama: Tableaux
•What is Privilege?
•Drama: Good Angel, Bad Angel
•Synonyms
•Idioms
•Drama: Inner Voice
•Writing: Public Service Posters
►Assessment Tools
The culminating task for this unit is a Public Service Poster assignment, for which suggested success criteria and an assessment rubric is provided.
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