Dead End In Norvelt

Dead End In Norvelt

Jack Gantos

2012 Newbery Award Winner

Scott O’Dell Award Winner

Published by Square Fish, an Imprint of Macmillan

Copyright 2011

341 Pages

Hilarious, Captivating, Sarcastic, Fascinating, Entertaining

Dead End In Norvelt by Jack Gantos is the humorous tale of small town living in rural America from the point of view of a young boy. As is the same as most young boys at Jack’s age, he decides to make the poor choice of reenacting a movie by aiming his fathers Japanese rifle at the local drive in movie theatre. What he doesn’t realize is the rifle had accidentally been loaded and when jack pulls the trigger he gets the surprise of his life as the movies become real. This unfortunate event ultimately leads Jack to become grounded for what seems like eternity. Although being grounded is among the worst things that can happen to a young boy during summer break, Jack finds solace when his mother recruits him to help the decrepit Miss Volker as she completes the obituaries for the original Norvelt citizens who have passed. Miss Volker has a knack for history and always includes an “On this day in history” with her obits. Since Jack has a never-ending fascination with history, the duo forms a strong working relationship that proves vital to the longevity of the town of Norvelt. When the Original Norvelters begin to pass at an unexpected rate, Jack and Miss Volker begin to suspect that there is foul play among them. Jack Gantos takes the reader on a literary rollercoaster that will make you laugh until it hurts and feel sorrow for the outdated town in this wildly humorous tale.

Reading Level

Ages 11-13, Lexile Measure: 920L

Suggested Delivery

Independent reading, Reading groups

Electronic Resources

            Using Jack Gantos’ authors website is a fantastic way to introduce the text to students. The “about” page tells the story of how Jack actually lived in Norvelt and was in a reading group called the “Blue Birds” which was for lower level readers. Having students read this and understand that even though they may struggle with reading now they can always become stronger with practice is a great way to increase motivation for reading as well as emphasizing text to self connections. The website also contacts a “contact” page that can be useful for sending letters to Jack Gantos from the class explaining why they liked, or disliked the text.

http://www.jackgantos.com

            Using the history page for the town of Eleanor, West Virginia is another useful electronic tool to aid in the comprehension of the story. Students can use the historical page for Eleanor and compare and contrast with the version that is explained to them in the Novel. This is a great exercise in literal comprehension as it will require using more than one text to compare and contrast as well as finding details in both informational and literary text. These concepts are directly correlated to the CCSS and can be incorporated into a Project Based Learning strategy involving groups. Along with the town of Eleanor website, students can also use the Arthur Dale Heritage website, specifically the page on New Deal Homesteads to find other towns that were similar to Norvelt. Since the novel is Historical Fiction, this aligns nicely with a social studies unit on the New Deal.

http://www.eleanorwv.com/history.html

http://arthurdaleheritage.org/history/new-deal-homestead-communities/

Key Vocabulary

·      Obituary – An article that pertains to someone’s death

·      Anemic – Deficiency of red blood cells

·      Abscond – Run away

·      Municipal – Local government

·      Cadaver – The dead body of a human being

·      Cauterize – Burn or sear with a hot iron

·      Barter – To trade

Teaching Strategies

            Before - There are a few tricky vocabulary words that are integral to the comprehension of the text and may need to be pre-taught. A wonderful strategy for this is to instruct the students how to use vocabulary cards to learn new words. Using a template the teacher should first demonstrate the process by picking a word, defining the word, providing a synonym, antonym, and then ultimately using that word in a sentence. Once the students have the vocabulary cards written they can participate in a “vocabulary toss”. This concept uses the vocabulary words on notecards taped to a beach ball. Sitting in a circle students can pass the ball from one to another and the word that is on top is the word that must be defined. Scaffold by allowing students to use their vocabulary cards and then remove the scaffold the next day to increase the challenge. This is a fun and engaging way to pre-teach vocabulary for the text.

            During – Due to the nature of this text, it is best read as an individual reading assignment over a few class periods. This provides a myriad of opportunities to use literature circles in order to model comprehension. Have students read the first five chapters of the story and then create a whole class literature circle in order to model the process. Have students come to class with at least three questions and two connections they have found within the first five chapters in order to have talking points for the discussion. Start the conversation with telling students just how miserable it can be to be grounded sometimes. This is a great time to incorporate a beach ball or other device that can be passed to ensure that only one student is talking at a time. The key to this activity is to make connections and work on further comprehension by allowing students to question not only themselves, but their peers as well. Be sure to emphasize strong academic language during this exercise and consider recording the conversation in order to ensure students provide their best discussion. Recording the discussion is also great for revisiting later in the story to determine if predictions were correct.

            After – Using the Poems for Two Voices activity is wonderful for Dead End In Norvelt. Students can start with creating a found poem using the pages in the story. Allow students to pick a selection of the book and pick out words that they will then rearrange to create a poem. This tactic takes the stress out of students who feel they are not strong in poetry and also allows for using the text in order to find specific examples. Once the found poem is created, students can initiate the Poems for Two Voices activity. Using pairs, have students create poems from opposing points of view such as Jack and his Mom, Jack and his Dad, Miss Volker and Mr. Spizz, etc.

Writing Activity

            To incorporate writing into the ELA experience for this novel, a teacher can easily have students create their very own obituaries and include a “This day in history” section to the end. This activity incorporates a challenging form of writing coupled with requiring research to complete the history aspect. Combine with a social studies unit for the ultimate experience!