This literature unit/study guide is designed for classroom and home school use for grades 3-5. As a teacher's guide it is based on the book, Starlight's Courage, Revised Edition and contains exercises and lessons in vocabulary, spelling, reading comprehension, geography, health and first aid, social studies, horse anatomy, and more. It includes puzzles, crafts, and other activities designed to make reading fun as well as educational.

The questions and activities in this Curriculum Unit for teaching from the middle-grade novel, "The Orange Slipknot," have been designed to help the teacher guide students in learning and incorporating these important reading strategies: making connections, questioning, visualizing, inferring, determining importance, and synthesizing. Instead of reading for content only, students will learn how to look beyond the words for meaning. They will learn to see that there are many layers of meaning in books. They will learn how to think about reading, and hopefully, to develop a love for reading. For each chapter, there are comprehension questions, writing prompts, discussions prompts, journaling prompts, and vocabulary activities. Various question/answer formats are used, with an emphasis on writing. Following the chapter activities, there are strong cross-curricular connections: literature links, reading, math, science, art, social studies, and geography. Questions and activities range from fourth to ninth grade levels. Extensive use is made of internet research. A teacher may wish to pick and choose from the large selection of questions and activities. Answer keys are in the back. The in-depth section on Nevada, stressing agriculture, makes The Orange Slipknot an excellent social studies tool. Since this Curriculum Unit is written by the author herself, the teacher and the students benefit by gaining insight into the writer?s mind. The elements which the author feels are important about the story and the writing process are emphasized.

"Powerful, wrenching.” –JOHN GREEN, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down "Raw and gripping." –JASON REYNOLDS, New York Times bestselling coauthor of All American Boys "A must-read!” –ANGIE THOMAS, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Hate U Give Raw, captivating, and undeniably real, Nic Stone joins industry giants Jason Reynolds and Walter Dean Myers as she boldly tackles American race relations in this stunning #1 New York Times bestselling debut, a William C. Morris Award Finalist. Justyce McAllister is a good kid, an honor student, and always there to help a friend—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. Despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates. Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out. Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up—way up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty cop beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it's Justyce who is under attack. "Vivid and powerful." -Booklist, Starred Review "A visceral portrait of a young man reckoning with the ugly, persistent violence of social injustice." -Publishers Weekly

"Like A Wrinkle in Time (Miranda's favorite book), When You Reach Me far surpasses the usual whodunit or sci-fi adventure to become an incandescent exploration of 'life, death, and the beauty of it all.'" —The Washington Post This Newbery Medal winner that has been called "smart and mesmerizing," (The New York Times) and "superb" (The Wall Street Journal) will appeal to readers of all types, especially those who are looking for a thought-provoking mystery with a mind-blowing twist. Shortly after a fall-out with her best friend, sixth grader Miranda starts receiving mysterious notes, and she doesn’t know what to do. The notes tell her that she must write a letter—a true story, and that she can’t share her mission with anyone. It would be easy to ignore the strange messages, except that whoever is leaving them has an uncanny ability to predict the future. If that is the case, then Miranda has a big problem—because the notes tell her that someone is going to die, and she might be too late to stop it. Winner of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Fiction A New York Times Bestseller and Notable Book Five Starred Reviews A Junior Library Guild Selection "Absorbing." —People "Readers ... are likely to find themselves chewing over the details of this superb and intricate tale long afterward." —The Wall Street Journal "Lovely and almost impossibly clever." —The Philadelphia Inquirer "It's easy to imagine readers studying Miranda's story as many times as she's read L'Engle's, and spending hours pondering the provocative questions it raises." —Publishers Weekly, Starred review

THE STORY: The home of the Blackwoods near a Vermont village is a lonely, ominous abode, and Constance, the young mistress of the place, can't go out of the house without being insulted and stoned by the villagers. They have also composed a nasty s