Philbrick, R. (1993). Freak the mighty . New York: Scholastic Press.
Freak the Mighty is a wonderful book about two children who are very different from everyone else and how they get together to make an unstoppable team. Maxwell Kane who is very big for his age but has a learning disability, lives with his grandparents because his dad is in prison for killing his mother. Kevin is a genius but was born with a birth defect that causes him to wear braces on his legs and walk with crutches. Since the two of them have been made fun of their entire lives they team up to defend the weak, and discover the mysteries about Max's past.
Lesson Plans
This lesson revolves around Rodman Philbrick’s Freak the Mighty.
Before reading, students are guided to make
personal connections with the story by jotting down words and phrases as
they read the back cover. During reading, students make predictions
about the text and skim recently read passages to find one sentence that
stands out to them. After reading, student discuss why the author chose
the title. Students connect the book to their own writing by focusing
on the use of voice in one’s writing, figurative language, vocabulary
development, and word study.
Find more of this lesson at:
This book is for students ages 10-14 or 5-8th grades. This book fits into the realistic fiction because it is a story that could actually happen. Children get picked on everyday because they are shorter, taller, smarter, not as smart, or just plain different than other students. These children show that you can stand up for yourself and make a difference.
Questions to Ponder:
- What would you do if someone picked on you everyday?
- Could you ever be friends with someone that is a lot different than you?
- Why are people mean to others?
- Sometime in your life you have been mean to someone, how did it make you feel? Why were you mean to them?
Reading Strategy-
While reading this book to my class earlier in the year I had then use the symbols that were similar to the ones that are used in the strategy. I let the students have stickers that were on post its. While reading to themselves or me reading aloud to the class the students were asked to put the post its with smiley faces on places they agreed with, faces that had a frown on statements they did not agree with, a green post it on pages they needed more clarification on or a red post it on pages they thought were awesome or had good information. I combined the post it note strategy with the active reading symbols.
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