Literacy Now

Bug Boy. Eric Luper. 2009. Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Ages 12–18

Summary

In 1934, The Great Depression crippled most of the United States. Except in Saratoga, NY, where fat cats gather together in the summer to celebrate the most famous thoroughbred racing season of the year. At the start we are introduced to Jack, an aspiring jockey who is working Fireside, a fast 3-year-old colt who is on a path to win the summer's biggest stakes race. Working for Pelton Stables under the careful eye of Mr. Hodge, the plot carries us through Jack's ascension from exercise rider to “bug boy,” a rider who has yet to win 40 races.

Immediately, Jack is offered cash for rigging a race. Framed in a rare period where Saratoga permitted bookmaking, corruption runs rampant as bookmakers try to maintain a profitable edge over bettors. Jack, the newest jockey at Saratoga, working the best horse, is a fresh target for race fixing.

Before long, Jack meets a beautiful woman, Elizabeth, who aims to capture Jack's heart. As Jack's fame grows, what is he willing to do to be the best jockey and keep his confident girl by his side?

When the big race comes, Jack is under massive stress. Tweed, his old boss, Dad, looking to make a buck, Elizabeth, hungry for notoriety on the social scene, and Mr. Hodge, the humble trainer looking for the big win, surround Jack as he must decide what to do with Fireside.

Cross-Curricular Connections

Social studies, health, reading, writing

Ideas for Classroom Use

Ethical Decisions

As students are reading or listening, students should focus on the value of “right and wrong” when temptations and aspirations conflict with conscience. Using reading response as well as collaborative discussions, students pinpoint the ethical dilemmas positioned in Luper's narrative.

Once the dilemma is identified, readers can first identify how they might react in a similar situation. After considering background knowledge, readers then revisit the text to consider the context of the circumstance to alter or confirm their thinking. Students locate and organize text evidence to support their rationales. Students can openly debate discussed decisions, building interest to discover what happens next. Explaining and empathizing through writing is a great way for students to process thought and feelings, thereby coming to terms with whatever emotions are evoked by their reading.

Interpersonal Relationships

Jack is an example of a boy who is forced to mature faster than perhaps he should. He faces pressures and decisions that many students face in high school and college. Jack can also be a representation of what rookie football and baseball players face when entering the big leagues. Readers can look at what forces a character to change. What influences exert pressure? How does Jack deal with money, alcohol, and risky behaviors? (Note: mature content included)

When we consider character analysis instruction, we can consider whether Jack changes for better or worse and what it really means to “come of age.” Students can engage in deep reflective writing as they evaluate the many pleasures that entice teenagers.

Life and Times

Saratoga is a magical city. A walk down Broadway will captivate the soul and images of the flat track will entrance visitors forever. Saratoga may not look the same today compared with 1934, but many structures still stand. Instead of packing up students for a field trip, slide shows and Google Earth can transport students to the bucolic upstate New York city laden in history. By using pictures, students can see the various locations Jack and his friend visited bring the story to life. Since horse racing is out of context for many readers, show pictures of Clair Court under the sweeping limps of oak trees, jogging horses emerging from the famous August mist that envelopes the track, or the architecture of the Gideon Putnam hotel, or even the YMCA on Broadway. Using Google Earth, readers can map out (pin) the same sights and imagine the travels Jack and Elizabeth took around the city.

Triple Crown/Sports – Behind the Scenes

Introducing Bug Boy in advance of one of the Triple Crown horse races invites interest in the greatest horse race of the year. Although Saratoga is a summer event, what happens at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May, The Kentucky Derby, has an impact on the Saratoga racing season. Even with today's media barrage, only so many things can be seen on television. Luper's narrative takes us to the backstretch, where a vivid imagination parallels the reality of sport in a way that will ignite a love for racing yet reveal the tragedy's that athletes face when aspiring to their dreams.

The Great Depression

Comparing and contrasting text is an important facet of the Common Core. When reading Bug Boy, we discover wealth did not evaporate in the Great Depression, unlike the pictures that portray destitution. Rather, greed and excess created dreams, even for boys who knew extreme poverty.

Using Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse and A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck, readers can compare and contrast, through structured activities, three special cultures that occurred during the Great Depression.

Additional Resources

Sarasota Heritage Visitors Center: Take a step back in time to see pictures and places and to read more about the notoriety that made Saratoga famous.

New York Racing Association, New York: Explore Saratoga horse racing as it is today, still the pinnacle racing meet of the year.

Texts With Similar Themes

A Long Way From Chicago. Richard Peck. 2000. Penguin.

Azad's Camel. Erika Pal. 2010. Frances Lincoln Children's Books.

Black Gold. Marguerite Henry. Ill. Wesley Dennis. 1992. Aladdin.

Migrant Mother: How a Photograph Defined the Great Depression (Captured History Series). Don Nardo, Alexa L Sandmann, Kathleen Baxter. 2011. Compass Point.

Out of the Dust. Karen Hesse. 2009. Great Source. Seabiscuit. Laura Hillenbrand. 2001. Random House.

Ride of Their Lives Ride of Their Lives: The Triumphs and Turmoil of Today's Top Jockeys. Lenny Shulman. 2002. Eclipse Press.

The Last Black King of the Kentucky Derby: The Story of Jimmy Winkfield. Crystal Hubbard. Ill. Robert McGuire. 2008. Lee & Low Books.

Justin Stygles is a sixth-grade teacher and literacy specialist in Western Maine. He has taught at a variety of levels for 12 years and is currently working with Corwin Literacy about effect, emotions, and transactional reading.

Simon will always share a special place in my heart. He was absent the entire first month of my first year of teaching because of an infection. The remainder of the year was spent flirting, thinking about his suave attire, and anything that was not work. My second year, Simon was in my remedial reading and writing class. That year, I learned Simon had to choose between taking care of his family and going to school. He was a veteran of “the hard knock life” and the result was an education full of holes.

My classes almost always start with reading; it’s predictable and sets a reflective tone I want to cultivate. Simon anticipated this time and escaped it with Houdini-like efficiency—he was diagnosed with ADHD. After observing Simon’s behavior, I determined he had two significant barriers to reading. First, he didn’t read well and no one wants to put their heart into unsuccessful activities he or she doesn’t enjoy. Second, exerting the energy necessary was more than he was willing to expend. The result was the need to escape each time the class was to read.

In my experience, students who don’t like reading do one of three things: (1) continually dispel every book as awful, (2) escape situations where it is required (can be texting or asking to do a different activity), or (3) avoid the requirement by ditching class.

The ABA way

I was exposed to Applied Behavioral Analysis as therapy for my daughter’s Aspergers and ADHD traits. What seemed like a miracle at the time was backed by decades of science and endorsed by every major medical group in the United States. In 1968 Baer, Wolf, and Risely described ABA as the process of applying behavioral principles to improve specific behaviors while simultaneously evaluating the changes and whether they can be attributed to the process. As a parent, my view was of a lot of charts, observations, and incredible change in my daughter’s behavior.

The process

With younger children, caregivers are natural behaviorists. If a baby cries, we go through a list: Does the baby want to avoid or gain something? Does the baby want attention or is there too much stimulus (noise)? Once children can talk, caregivers begin to focus on the physical characteristics of the behavior. “Stop crying!”, “Don’t hit!”, “Sit down!” Teachers must realize that behavior only continues if it is reinforced and reinforcement is often covert. If a child stands at an inappropriate time in need of attention only to be corrected by a stern “sit down,” the child has been reinforced and will likely repeat the behavior. ABA focuses on the five functions of behavior: to gain attention, to gain a tangible, to gain or escape sensory stimulation, to escape attention or a task, to avoid attention or a task. The first step to changing behavior begins with identifying the function.  

The next step is reinforcement. For anyone to choose an alternative behavior over what they are prone to do, there must be significant incentive. I use a worksheet with a variety of incentives including food, phone use, and iPads. Students prioritize the incentives and we develop systems, like tokens, to reinforce the correct behavior. It’s important to realize that students often don’t know how they are supposed to act, so instruction on things like respect or restraint is necessary. The last step is the application and analysis. I use a chart to document the increase or decrease of the problem behavior. Always begin with easy goals and increase; students have to feel successful so the process isn’t seen as a punishment. Normally the behavior gets worse before it gets better, but if the behavior continues, either the function is incorrectly hypothesized or the incentive isn’t strong enough.    

Results

I determined Simon wanted to avoid reading because he considered himself a poor reader. This will not change overnight, which means Simon must do a lot of reading in the meantime. I first set a goal, “Simon will begin reading within five seconds of being assigned” and then set up an achievable goal to begin, “Simon will check his texts and then begin reading.” Essentially, Simon avoided reading out of self-preservation; he didn’t want to feel stupid. So I reflected on what I knew about him and came up with a significant incentive.

We met at lunch one afternoon and discussed his behavior. I told him what I expected and offered him the chance to stay in my room to “hang out” as long as he met the expectation. I then explained how I would prompt him physically and verbally and then gesture if he was having trouble. Simon was on board and met the expectation quickly. Eventually, I removed the incentive until the adverse behavior was extinct. Several times throughout the year we reinstituted the program for his escape behaviors and others, something ABA terms “maintenance.”

I often wonder about the difference teachers and parents could make if everyone simply knew the functions of behavior. There is an enormous amount of information on YouTube, Pinterest, and various websites that offer ABA methodology for free. The changes to my classroom and family cannot be understated. Good luck!  

Nick Murja teaches remedial reading and writing at Palo Duro High School in Amarillo, TX. He is working on a PhD in Literacy, Language, and Diversity at Texas Tech University.

Being able to name the letters of the alphabet is the best predictor of beginning reading achievement, even though knowing the names of the letters does not have a direct impact on a child’s ability to read.

As a literacy consultant in more than 100 kindergarten rooms over the past 30 years, I have found many kindergarten teachers befuddled by the fact that their children could name all the letters of the alphabet and a phoneme often associated with each of the letters but could not read or write.

I explain that without meaningful writing and reading activities, children see no reason to go beyond naming letters to writing letters and eventually learning the alphabetic principle (sound to letter relationships). Children actively construct their own literacy learning about phoneme–grapheme correspondences when they engage in the process of meaningful writing  in a writing workshop based on the research of Graves and Cambourne’s Conditions.

Then I proceed to show teachers how children engage in writing and how I guide them during the process. I particularly want to demonstrate a very useful strategy that I devised when I noticed children struggling to remember the formation of a certain letter. I call it the “ABC Song Strategy.” It is sung to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" (see my video here for demonstrations and details).

This ABC Song Strategy has worked almost every time for kindergartners except for directionality mix-ups that require a “moving model” of the letter’s formation. However, the ABC Song Strategy does need frequent reinforcement, especially in the beginning of the year. That is why we practice it every day a few times in the “Alphabet Time” of Getting Ready for Writing Workshop.

“I love the emphasis on singing the ABCs often; one student who I worked with needed to sing the song to find a letter for a sound in almost every word she wanted to write,” says Jeni Tyjeski, a preservice kindergarten teacher. “As the semester went on and she put more sounds with written letters, we sang the song much less frequently, but she knew if she forgot what the letter looked like she could always sing the song. Watching this child develop as a writer from hesitant and reliant on my guidance to bubbly and full of ideas was incredible!”

Although being able to name the letters of the alphabet is important, being able to write the letters at will and connecting them to a sound, also known as “invented spelling,” is even more important. Invented spelling is the very best predictor of reading, and it allows children to begin to know meaning before they know how to actually spell a word.

Arlene C. Schulze is a longtime reading teacher and specialist. She holds a lifetime degree in elementary education from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a master’s degree in reading from the University of Wisconsin, Steven’s Point (UWSP). She has been a K–2 literacy consultant for three school systems in North Central Wisconsin and a literacy instructor in language arts and reading at UWSP for many years. She is the author of the book Helping Children Become Readers Through Writing. Currently she is tutoring struggling readers in northern Wisconsin.

Social media changed the face of classroom instruction in ways we could have never imagined. Today, access to lesson plans, templates, and graphic organizers is easier compared with the days we anticipated the arrival of Highlights magazine.

Let me establish a scenario for you. I reluctantly embrace social media through Twitter. Some of my younger colleagues eagerly embrace Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. I enjoy reading scholarly journals as a means to consider instructional possibilities. My younger colleagues, however, go to Teachers Pay Teachers as their means to discover new instructional possibilities.

Teachers Pay Teachers offers convenience. Someone has already labored over—and theoretically found success from—the construction of instructional materials and resources. With a nominal fee, teachers can readily access and employ resources that might have, otherwise, taken hours to create.

Pinterest, as another example, offers expediency. Teachers can spend a night in front of a screen sorting, tagging, and pinning potential ideas for tomorrow’s instruction and feel accomplished. Further, several new teachers feel Pinterest is often their saving grace in a time of need.

Case in point: A young teacher has not yet developed his or her capacity to instruct with whole-class novels, like Walk Two Moons. Using Pinterest, a young teacher can turn to activities on literary elements, story arcs, or symbolism (as examples); find literal comprehension questions; and locate templates that students can use during their reading. In other words, Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers offer immediate solutions and a tremendous state of relief. Who can argue with relief? Instant access on Pinterest is quite different from the hours I spent cuddled up in the corner of the school library combining Highlights for ideas on how to teach Among the Hidden.

The conflict regarding social media’s role in the classroom, to me, is not availability or access, but investment, but the personal investment—the intellectual stock—in one’s teaching career.

Let’s consider financial investment. 

In 2015, I spent roughly $1,000 in professional texts and journals, not including the seemingly unlimited resources available through Twitter and blogs. I consider reading as an investment in one’s professionalism. Reading inspires innovation. Inside the journals, texts, and blogs are my notes that include clarifications, realizations, and innovations.  The next instructional idea is always taking shape. After lessons, I couldn't help but think about how kids responded and what adaptions I could make. 

I have a friend who, in 2015, spent more than $1,000 on Teachers Pay Teachers. He had worksheets for every lesson, all aligned with the Common Core. But I’m not so sure he became a better teacher. Even when we collaborated, I was never quite sure he built off anything he learned. In other words, I know he scored the worksheets and graphic organizers, but did he really aim for deep learning?

Personal investment and devotion to instructional design lasts because of the creativity you bring to the table and the authenticity of your instructional intent. I am afraid “Pinterest-based” strategies displace the pride of originality with the veiled satisfaction of having fulfilling a task. With the instruction developed through practice and adapting evidence-based strategies, you have a constant, interactive method of learning. I cannot say I’ve had same feeling applying “Pinterest-based” strategies.

Many of us already feel our autonomy and creativity is displaced by demanding policies. The greatest asset every teacher has is his or her creativity and originality. Enhancing your creativity by studying evidence-based strategies, collaborating with peers who challenge traditional thinking, and reflecting on implementation of your student-specific strategies will create the confidence and autonomy you desire. Does Pinterest or Teachers Pay Teachers offer you that same opportunity?

Justin Stygles is a fifth-grade teacher at Guy E. Rowe Elementary school in Norway, ME. He has taught for 13 years at the intermediate level and in various summer program settings. He is currently working on a book with Corwin Literacy about self-conscious emotions.

Although many students eagerly await summer as a time to move away from books, it’s actually the ideal time to move toward them. During these vacation months, young people have free time and choice, luxuries that open the door to exploration of the written word. However, after months in school of being told what to read and when, many kids are resistant to hitting the books. After more than a decade in education, I use certain practices to dissipate this resistance and get children reading.

Provide choice

Reading is often seen as a chore because students are asked to read about topics that don’t excite them. During the summer, allow kids to choose what they want to read. Kids who are typically reluctant readers often will become consumed by books on subjects they’re passionate about.

Layer in complexity

Help students to pursue their interests by suggesting they read a variety of texts and points of view on their preferred subject. Most curricula encourage students to compare and contrast readings and read paired text for good reason: This practice gives students a deeper understanding of a topic and builds their critical thinking skills. Over the summer, practice this widening of view with diverse text and a variety of media.

Think outside of the (book) box

Don’t limit summer reading goals to just books. For many students, magazine and newspaper articles are a great option to get started with daily reading and to feel a sense of accomplishment at the end, having learned something new. With shorter articles on topics they’re excited about, students may be willing to make the effort to read more challenging text.

Keep in mind that any reading is good reading

During the school year, students are told what to read as a class and often their independent reading choices are limited to their level. Allow for more freedom and fluidity over the summer. Comic books and graphic novels count. If your middle schooler wants to revisit his beloved Captain Underpants from elementary school, let him. Reading only elementary books all summer wouldn’t be a good idea, but one won’t hurt and still maintains the reading practice.

Add interaction

Although independent reading is necessarily a solitary activity, there are ways to make it social. Adults love book clubs as a forum to discuss what’s on their minds after a great read, and kids feel the same. To add in this social element and move themes and questions off the page, parents could read the same articles or books that their kids choose, so they could discuss the text together. Parents or teachers could organize in-person or online book/article groups to give kids some accountability for finishing reading by a certain date and to give them a chance to discuss their perspectives.

Add incentives

Intrinsic motivation is ideal and comes from providing choice, but extrinsic motivation helps, because there will be no grades and probably no due dates over the summer. Parents, teachers, or both can devise reward systems for their children and students, and many organizations sponsor free online summer reading contests and activities. ReadWorks, Zinc Learning Labs, and Newsela all offer summer reading programs in a variety of formats.

Make reading a habit

Most of us strive on structure when it comes to sticking with new or challenging activities. A reading practice is no different. Summer reading is easier when families set a regular no-screens reading time that ideally the whole family or at least one parent participates in. Just like with athletic training, you should start with a realistic goal and then add on as reading becomes more regular. Just like you wouldn’t ask a 3K runner to be ready for a marathon next week, don’t expect a child who is used to very little independent reading to start off with two hours a day. Be sure to set a goal that can be accomplished in the sweet spot of discomfort: not so much that the reader wants to give up, but enough that she’s growing.

Remember to have fun

All too often school and assigned reading are seen as drudgery with little real-world relevance to students. Summer independent reading should feel like the opposite! This opportunity to get kids reading what they’re interested in and what is relevant to them has the potential to completely shift their relationship with reading in the fall, so be sure to keep this in mind with positive, encouraging energy!

Colette Coleman graduated from Yale University and entered the world of education in 2005 as a middle school teacher in Los Angeles through Teach For America. She earned her master’s degree in education and taught at an international school in Indonesia. She then moved out of the classroom to support schools in the implementation of new education technology and is currently in New York City working as the Director of Community Engagement at Zinc Learning Labs, an online reading program for middle and high school students.