What do BY girls read in 7-8th grade?

amother

Mon, May 05 2014, 11:06 am

A lot of the the books I used to teach for those grades would probably not fly in a BY curriculum. I really can't think off the top of my head what might be considered acceptable. Now I work on designing curricula. So- as a teacher or parent in a BY, what books are they reading in school at that age? Thanks.

amother

Mon, May 05 2014, 11:11 am

In the BY school where I taught they read Johnny Tremain (censored), Rebecca at Sunnybrook Farms, Oliver Twist- I think, and lots of others that I can't remember now.

tigerwife

Mon, May 05 2014, 11:20 am

I recall learning Voyage of the Lucky Dragon and Old Yeller.

By the way, 'BY' is a pretty broad term. My very frum Brooklyn alma mater was pretty open-minded in Lit but other BY schools may not even teach non-Jewish work.

amother

Mon, May 05 2014, 11:22 am

OP here. Dealing with BYs on the more open-minded end, but I imagine even so, something like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is not gonna fly.

tigerwife

Mon, May 05 2014, 11:24 am

The Miracle Worker is also a great play to teach. I think when I taught it, the school taped over one paragraph concerning abuse (I think?) but my belief is that if you don't censor, the students won't notice it in most cases.

ectomorph

Mon, May 05 2014, 11:37 am

I think Oliver Twist is a bit advanced for 7th grade. It's the type of thing someone would read on their own at that age if they were up to it. But it's too long and complicated for the kids who are still catching up. It's high school level.

We studied Johnny Tremain half the year (I used to know parts of it by heart Smile

)
We also studied this terrifying book about a girl who is being raised in a community separated from the world and goes to find a medicine for her sister with diptheria, anyone know what this book is called?

Otherwise, it was mostly excerpts from our Literature book for 7th grade level.

librarygirl

Mon, May 05 2014, 11:41 am

Ectomorph, I believe you mean running out of time, by Margaret haddix Peterson.

My dd's school also does 'a single shard' and 'behind the bedroom wall'.

ESLevi

Tue, May 06 2014, 12:46 am

We've used these in 6th or 7th grades:
Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry
Where the Red Fern Grows
A Single Shard
The Breadwinner
Breaking Stalin's Nose
The One and Only Ivan (everyone loves this one, but read it to make sure it fits your school)

We have some nonfiction selections too, several books by Jim Murphy are good, and there's a book about building the atomic bomb by Steve Shenkin.

(I'm going to refrain from writing Johnny Tremaine, but I admit that we do it too!)

Roots

Tue, May 06 2014, 7:41 am

from eighth grade I remember animal farm. the cay. tom sawyer. (the pearl we did in 9th grade)

in 7th we did an agatha christie book murder on the orient express I think

I dont remember what else

zcc

Sun, May 11 2014, 3:42 am

shades of grey 8th grade
shefford 7th grades
snow treasures, oliver with a twist 6th grade

zcc

Sun, May 11 2014, 3:44 am

did tuck everlasting when taught 6th. was great but you need to read it and decide if will work

theoneandonly

Sun, May 11 2014, 4:40 am

Oh I just remembered. We did Flowers for Algernon in 7th grade. (The teacher gave out photocopied sheets of it instead of us having the whole book so I'm assuming she censored out a lot of it.)

bigsis144

Sun, May 11 2014, 9:58 am

I don't remember too many full length novels, but I remember a bunch of short stories -- O. Henry's "The Last Leaf", Kipling's "Rikki Tikki Tavi", some short play about libel during the American Revolution or thereabouts? In 9th grade we did Around the World in 80 Days, which was part of the Artscroll/Mesora textbook, along with Poe's The Cask of Amontillado and some Emily Dickinson poems.

I was in a chassidish elementary school where we were encouraged to do book reports on Jewish books, if that gives you an idea of how sheltered things were Smile

I was off reading everything I could get my hands on at the (forbidden) public library, though Wink