Customer Reviews

A Guide for Using The Tale of Despereaux in the Classroom

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The reviews for this book were so glowing. I hoped it would significantly reduce my work creating lessons for my classes studying Despereaux. I even spent a ton of money on international expedited shipping so I could get it fast. Alas, I was greatly disappointed.

The book is slim--very slim! There are some meagre vocabulary lists, but no definitions for them. The comprehension questions are just OK, and a couple writing prompts were usable for me. Then the extra activities that make up the bulk of the book are mainly things like having a themed party, learning about lords and ladies and knights and dungeons, acting out a court session, sewing handkerchiefs.

What is this?! You have your students study a NEWBERRY-AWARD-WINNING novel, fantastically written, and spend your time in class sewing HANDKERCHIEFS? Why not study the language and the storytelling, which was so excellent as to win top honors?

I just don't get it. (Obviously. I realize others may love all these extraneous activities.) It left me wandering around the house and making unsavory mental speculations about the quality of teaching that these teacher-created materials represented. I'm probably overly cranky on this. But truly I could only use a small fraction of this already-slim book for my classes.

Not for those who want to really delve into the novel and its language and storytelling. Excellent for people who would like to sew handkerchiefs, have themed parties, talk about knights and courts and dungeons and do many other activities that are somehow related to the story, but are not of the story itself.

This book has fabulous suggestions and ways to really utilize all that this book has to offer. It is a fabulous book, a wonderful lesson, and a great guide for learning as much as possible! I highly recommend it for homeschoolers and classroom teachers!

I used this product with a group of 5th grade ESOL students to help them gain more understanding of "The Tale of Despereaux" and found it to be of much higher quality than other literature units I have used in the past. The vocabulary is tough, but accessible, with lots of suggestions for implementing it into the lessons. This book divides the novel into sections and provide activities for discussion, review, critical thinking, and research. I highly recommend this book to anyone teaching upper level students.

I bought this to use with my 6th/8th ESL students. I used some of the worksheets and ideas. What's nice is that there are enough activities that I could pick and choose and find the ones that suited my class activities. I still had to supplement and prepare more, of course, but it was a good starting point.