Launch
 
 

Literature Circle Lessons
 
 

Closure
 
 

Bibliography/References
 
 

Instructional Ideas & Extensions
 
 

Alignment to the North Carolina Standard Course of Study

Throughout Esperanza Rising the characters refer to the different seasons by the fruits and vegetables they were working with.  As an extension you could have the students research when each of the crops grow and create a bulletin board including each season and what time period it covers.

You can assign your AIG students small research projects on subjects such ad the Mexican Revolution, migrant work camps, and immigration.

By using this book it a fifth grade class you are automatically adjusting for reading level in that this book is written on a lower 5th grade reading level.  This allows students who are slightly below reading level to enjoy reading reading the same book as the other children in the class.  If you have kids who are severely below grade level you can pre read each chapter into a tape recorder so the lower level can read along with the tape recorder.

This book integrates well into the social studies curriculum for 5th grade because 5th graders study the Western Hemisphere and Esperanza Rising is a book about the journey of a girl from Mexico to America.

During the book the workers were concerned with their wages and the wages others were willing to work for.  On page 203 Miguel was expressing his concern that workers were willing to pick cotton for $0.05 to $0.06 per pound.  When you are working with decimals in math you could bring in a pound of raw cotton so that students can understand how much cotton that really is.  Then you could have the class calculate how much cotton they would have to pick, at those wages, to earn different sums of money.