Book Talk Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Craft Lesson # 3: Getting Away With Murder

Title: Feature Story Writing

Rational: Students often complain that they cannot find anything to write about. By showing students that feature articles in the newspapers are written by reporters that go in search of a good story that is written to target a specific audience. Students will learn how to find a story when there appears to be no story by conducting a personality profile on another student to find something interesting to write about.

Resources: Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case, Daily newspapers with feature story examples

Discussion: The author of Getting Away with Murder: The true story of the Emmett Till Case, Chris Crowe, was conducting an interview with Newberry award winner Mildred D. Taylor. In preparation of her interview, Taylor had mentioned Emmett Till in an essay that Crowe had read. He decided to follow up on that reference to see if he needed to include more information in his writing. He used this lead to write 2 more books on the subject of Emmett Till and his murder case.

What to do: Group students in partners and have them interview each other like a reporter would. They are to find out some interesting things about his person that they might be able to use to develop a feature story.

Extension: Have the students actually interview at least 3 people that know the student (parents, siblings, teachers, coaches, enemies) and develop a feature story to be published (after being reviewed by teacher) in the school newspaper.

TEKS: (9th grade) 6,8

Book Review for Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Jeff Kinney, who began publishing his Greg Heffley cartoons in 2004 on funbrain.com as a way to keep kids interested in the site after school was out for the summer, was able to bring in multiple audiences when he published his cartoons in a novel, although He never intended to publish the cartoons online. Greg is in middle school and has many of the same issues that many face or did face in middle school.

The first page in the book is dated September 7. It states:

First of all, I want to get something straight: this is a Journal,
not a diary. I know what is says on the cover but when Mom went
out to buy this thing I SPECIFICALLY said to make sure it didn't
say "diary" on it. So don't expect me to be all: dear diary this"
and "dear diary that".

This book is hilarious and would be great for reluctant readers. The story follows Greg through a difficult year in his life. He does not always make the right decision, but as readers will see, he learns the hard way what he should have done. Parents will like that Greg's parents are involved in his life. His father monitors his video games and his mother suggests the journal for Greg to express his feelings.

This book was a New York Time's Best Seller for a reason. It is great for kids and adults. It is also a great book for boys, but girls will enjoy it, too. Jeff Kinney has also published 2 sequels to the first book called, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules and The Last Straw, as well as a Do0-it-yourself version to help kids write their own journals.

Kinney is the design director of an Internet publishing company. He creates games and activities for the website funbrain.com. Kinney new that he wanted to be a cartoonist after college. His first attempt at a comic strip was while he was in college at the University of Maryland in the early 1990's. He ran a comic called Igdoof in the college newspaper, but was no able to get is published after college. He now lives in Massachusetts with his wife and two sons.

View this review at amazon.com

Red Hot Salsa Journal

Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the United States, by Lori Marie Carlson is a collection of poems that depict the difficulty that may be experienced by some Latinos. The poets also write about love, family, and even food. I absolutely loved "My Shortest Food Poem" by Trinidad Sanchez, Sr.


Some Latinos that live in the United States feel that they must straddle the culture of their native land and that of the United States, never being truly American or Latino. This is depicted in the poem, "I am Who I am by, So What" Raquel Valle Senties.


I am a grafted Flower that didn't'
take, a Mexican without being one,
an American without being one.


Not only are these poems written for Latinos, but the messages in these poems are relevant for many. When I read this poem, I thought about my dad's grandparents that came to the United States from Germany. I also thought about a time when I felt like I did not fit in anywhere. I think that these poems are great for anyone. I enjoyed them and I am not Latino.

I think that the fact that the poems are written in English and Spanish allows not only students that are learning English see the language in print next to the Spanish version, I think that is allows the reader to see the beautiful words in more than one language. My Spanish is not that great, but I was able to translate most of the poems (with the English version for help) and see what language looks like from a different perspective. Does that make any sense? It does to me.


I really enjoyed the collection of poetry. I think it would be interesting to let students create their own collection of poetry and see what poems they would use.

Poet Slave of Cuba Journal

I was not sure that one could write a biography in verse, but yet again I have been proven wrong. Engle is able to tell a beautifully written story about Juan Francisco Manzano and his not so beautiful life through poems.

Engle is able to allow the reader into the minds of all of the people in the book. She is able to use the different perspectives of all of the characters in the story. The reader is able to see the point of view from each individual such as his mother's(Maria Del Pilar) sadness. Engle writes,

I'll stay with you, Juanito, I promise...
We will not leave you behind
You will see us, we promise

His father is angry that his son is still a slave. The reader can feel that anger in the poetry.

Now they call my son the Golden Beak
and hearing such a flattering nickname, I ask
myself , I ask others, I even ask God:

Where is the rest of the bird?


Don Nicolas feels sorry for him. I almost felt sorry for Don Nicholas for feeling sorry for Juan. Engle has a gift for writing.

She has thrashed him.
We have to shun him, pretending he does not exist...

I hope he knows that when this is over
he will fish with me again,
and swim with me, and ride horses.
We will pretend we are brothers.


There are many uses for this type of literary work in a classroom. Students can see that a poem is a telling of something. The subject can be anything. You can compare the lives of slaves in Cuba to those in the United states and other countries.

I really enjoyed the poetry of Juan that was included at the back of the book. I also thought that the illustrations were very dynamic and enhanced the story.

Up Before Daybreak Journal

I grew up in cotton country around Lubbock, Texas and apparently did not know as much about the cotton industry as I thought. I remember waiting until I turned 12 so that I could work during the summers for a farmer spraying or hoeing weeds. I thought the money would be worth the labor. I was so wrong. We only worked from 7 A.M. until noon. We were fed lunch, watched Days of our Lives , and were then taken to the swimming pool. I thought life was rough. I cannot even imagine having to depend on that money to support my family. My family was by no means wealthy. There were five children in my family and money was tight, but we always had what we needed. The money that I earned during the summers was for the things that I wanted.

This book once again took me out of my comfort zone when I put my experience in the cotton fields up next to the ones that I read about. It makes me feel guilty hat I complained about work. Now I am grateful for the opportunity that I had.

This book tells the story of cotton and much more. I think that middle school students would be able to put themselves into some of these situations because of the age of some of the child workers.

I think that the photographs were very well chosen and allow the reader to see what conditions were like for the folks in the book. I really enjoyed the photographs and think that I was able to get a better understanding of the conditions by looking deeply at them. You can almost see the feelings on the faces of the people.

Book Talk: Daisy Kutter

Book Review # 2

Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case

The story of Emmett Till is one that everyone needs to hear. It is a little-known story of a black boy from Chicago that is murdered in Mississippi on 1955 for whistling at a white woman. He was fourteen years old and unfamiliar with the Jim Crow Laws of the South. Chris Crowe is able to put together an eye-opening book about Emmett and the facts of his murder, the trial, and the events of the Civil Rights Movement that soon follow. This book may take readers out of their safe comfort zone of the current times, but tells a true story of a young boy that died at the hands of adults because of the color of his skin.

This book received the IRA’s children Book Award and was a Jane Addams Honor Book.

In the classroom this book could be used to teach research, how to find reliable sources, and how pull research together, as well as to introduce the Civil Rights movement into a unit of study.

Chris Crowe is an English professor of young adult literature at Brigham Young University. He became interested in Emmett Till when writing a book about Mildred D. Taylor. She had written about Emmett in one of her essays. He followed up on Emmett and was able to tell his story.

Review can be found at www.amazon.com