Keola's Teach This 1

Teach This: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (2009)

When You Reach Me is a well-written young adult novel about Miranda Sinclair, a twelve-year-old girl in sixth grade who lives in New York with her single-parent mother who is preparing to be a contestant on the game show “$20,000 Pyramid” in April 1979. Miranda receives four anonymous letters starting in October of 1978 that weave a mystery involving a few of her closest friends, the upcoming game show, and her missing house key. The first letter warns mortal danger for one of her friends, and Miranda must write a letter to this unknown person to help them save her friend’s life. This letter becomes her story of the events of the previous winter—a second timeline on the plot. She recounts the events of that winter starting with her best friend Sal who gets punched in the stomach and she consequently loses his friendship. She receives four letters in all and through the winter begins to understand this anonymous person knows things others cannot—as if this person is from the future. This novel is a tribute to A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, but it is also an excellently written mystery of its own accord. An easy read yet complex text, this traditional mystery is ideal for teaching the techniques of this genre in a middle-school curriculum because it has no sex, no excessive use of violence and no harsh language.

In today’s pop culture it seems harsh language, sex and violence have become the central aesthetic qualities to a song, movie, T.V. show, or a piece of fiction. Sensationalism is an attracting force that sells the audience. How can a novel without foul language, sex, and violence succeed in today’s classroom? How can it avoid the classic response (if it’s read at all) “This story is boring!”? Depending on the readership of the classroom, the G-rated aspect of When You Reach Me could be the biggest barrier for student interest and discussion. Therefore, it is pertinent to introduce this text within the context of a discussion about the genre traditional mystery and the importance of how a text can succeed without romance, sex, and violence.

Pre-reading discussion: Present the text

1)      Historical backdrop—discuss The Hardy Boys novels, Agatha Christie novels and Sherlock Holmes classics of the genre. Ask if any of your students had ever read these novels. Speak about their relevance in the genre and their long-lived success. Also, with Sherlock Holmes you could guide discussion around how the contemporary movies have exploited the traditional Sherlock Holmes character and stories by infusing sex and violence for today’s adult audience.

2)      Discuss the devices of mystery to focus on close reading: foreshadowing, parallel paths of the plot, red herrings, and pertinent clues. Additionally, address other fictional devices that Rebecca Stead uses in When You Reach Me: the amateur sleuth and the simple narration, the subtlety of the two plot lines, the chapter headings that read like the categories of the show “$20,000 Pyramid.” Also discuss the setting: NYC in 1979. How are these kids’ lives different then NYC kids today?

Pre-reading discussion is the time to anticipate and address your students’ potential issues with a text. Specifically, with When You Reach Me the simple narration and plot line could deter a student’s interest, but if you ask them to consider the importance of the characteristics of the text that they might otherwise be repulsed by, you can encourage them to move beyond the initial reader response to a more critical analysis of the text and the genre. Therefore, provide them with things to consider while they read, questions to look for, and themes the text addresses.

During-reading discussion: Mapping out the suspects

The primary mystery of When You Reach Me is who is the note-writer? Engaging the class to analyze the clues—specifically the characters—as they read the text is the most obvious way to discuss red herrings, plot twists, and foreshadowing. As you start reading the text, have the class guess who the note-writer is. Visually list the characters on the board during this primary discussion and list under them the reasons why they are the suspect. Encourage the students not only to speculate but also look for clues within the text itself. If the class does this as a whole, the teacher can set up the discussion without competition—side-stepping the who is right and who is wrong—and structure a universally designed learning experience: as a class we’re going to analyze the clues and solve this mystery. Simply gather information initially. Then have the students gather in groups to create character boards based on this information. These can be rough drawings of the characters or symbols they represent surrounded by the reasons why they could be the note-writer written on the posters. Display the posters around the room for visual support of mystery clues. This could be a fun and visual way for class engagement as the sleuth, and it can encourage those students to be a part of the process who otherwise may have trouble understanding the clues the text presents. Hopefully in the end not any one student will feel like they were the one who was right or wrong. Furthermore, this is a great way to engage in analyzing character development.

Character Development and Text Complexity: Suspect number one

      At some point it will become clear that the narrator might be from the future, and at this point the idea that Miranda could be writing notes to herself from the future will be very evident (this is, however, not the case). At this point create a lesson plan for analysis of character development and text complexity in the third chapter.

In chapter three entitled “Things You Hide” Miranda discusses the book A Wrinkle in Time with the shop-owner Bell. She has reread the novel numerous times and she carries it around everywhere. What is the significance with this text within a text, besides the homage Rebecca Stead is paying to Madeline L’Engle’s novel? She recounts the story to a friendly shopkeeper in her neighborhood. There are certain parallels between A Wrinkle in Time and Miranda’s story, but what I find compelling about this love for this novel is what Bucher and Hinton bring up in their discussion about bibliotherapy, quoting from other sources: “When bibliotherapy is used with individual students 1) The reader identifies with a character in the book (identification); 2) The character is faced with or able to resolve a difficult situation or problem (catharsis); 3) The reader reflects on the events of the story, relates them to his or her life, and internalizes them to develop personal coping strategies or problem-solving skills (insight)” (Afolayan, 1992; Halstead, 1994, as qtd in Bucher & Hinton 145). These ideas of bibliotherapy describe Miranda’s identification with Meg and her journey to find her missing father in A Wrinkle in Time, because Miranda’s father is non-existent. In teaching When You Reach Me, the class can examine Miranda a little deeper as a character by examining her love for this novel. Further exploring the theme of bibliotherapy, students could question their own attachments to a favorite novel by reflecting on why that story is important to them.

      This particular lesson plan discussing the novel within the novel would be most beneficial in a group discussion. As a teacher, you could pair A Wrinkle in Time with When You Reach Me and have students discuss the relevance to the former with the latter. But to focus more on the character of Miranda, provide a synopsis and ask the kids to focus on the text within the text. This allows them to consider the complexity of the text, and it might also peak interest in others to read A Wrinkle in Time on their own. Have the kids specifically map out the occurrences of references to A Wrinkle in Time in When You Reach Me, discuss in detail the context and narrative tone, and what Miranda reveals about herself to her anonymous note-writer and to her reader. Have students examine details: What does Miranda tell Bell about Meg and A Wrinkle in Time in the chapter entitled “Things You Hide”? Have them question their own reading interests: We know that Miranda has no father and we learn that Meg goes on a journey to find her father. She feels a strong connection to Meg through these facts. Have you ever felt a connection to a character in a novel? Which one and why? Having the students share these personal experiences with each other would further enrich the reading experience for themselves and learn about this experience with others.  Furthermore, some kids might not ever feel a personal connection to a text because they simply do not read. For these kids, learning about why reading is personal to others might be implemental in creating an interest in reading.

This third chapter entitled “Things You Hide” is also revealing with character development and foreshadowing when Miranda questions the meaning of her name: “I was named after a criminal. […] [Mom] didn’t understand that a person gets attached to a person’s name, that something like this might come as a shock” (Stead 7 & 10). Miranda is grappling with her identity regarding her name and her character. Is she a criminal? Will she become one? What does this potentially foreshadow as to the identity of the note-writer? Discussion of the third chapter of this novel can be quite fruitful and calls to the complexity of the text in character development.

When You Reach Me is a seemingly simple but rich text of the traditional mystery genre. It is not very sensational and it also does not bring up difficult issues in extreme cases, that otherwise in another text might be very valuable. However, because it is a complex text and an easy read, it might reach to reluctant readers through its easy narration, and it might also reach to the critical readers through its complexities in plot and character development. Depending on how the teaching is structured, When You Reach Me is an excellent novel to use as a universally designed learning experience because it has the potential to engage readers of different levels.

Works Cited

Afolayan, J.A. Documentary perspective of bibliotherapy in education. Reading Horizons, 33, 137-148, 1992. As quoted in Bucher, K. & Hinton, K. Young Adult Literature: Exploration, Evaluation, and Appreciation. 3^rd Edition. Boston: Pearson, 2014. Print.

Bucher, K. & Hinton, K. Young Adult Literature: Exploration, Evaluation, and Appreciation. 3^rd Edition. Boston: Pearson, 2014. Print.

Halstead, J.W. Some of my best friends are books: Guiding gifted readers from pre-school to high school. Dayton, OH: Ohio Psychology Press, 1994. As quoted in Bucher, K. & Hinton, K. Young Adult Literature: Exploration, Evaluation, and Appreciation. 3^rd Edition. Boston: Pearson, 2014. Print.

Stead, Rebecca. When You Reach Me. New York: Wendy Lamb Books, 2009. Print.