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Name______
The Kid in the Red Jacket by Barbara Park
Summer Reading Study Guide for Students Entering 4th Grade
Suggested pacing guide available on the NHCA Summer Reading Website.
Answer all questions in complete sentences.
1. Before Reading: Cover Survey -- See, Think, & Wonder Thinking Routine
It is always helpful to think about what we are reading before we even start reading. Having even a little bit of background knowledge helps readers to better understand any text. Use cover illustrations and titles to help you think about a book even before you begin to read.
Look at the cover of the book. Describe what you see. What do you think is happening in this illustration?
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Using what you have seen and thought about the cover illustration and the title of this book, what do you wonder about the book or story? Can you make any predictions?
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2. Before Reading: Activating Background Knowledge
Read the blurb on the back of the book or on the dust jacket flap. Use the blurb to further activate your background knowledge. Think about the situation described by the blurb. What is your definition of a friend? What makes a person a friend? Is it important to have friends? Why?
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Chapter 1
3. Author’s Craft: Understanding Literary Elements
The Exposition or Introduction of the Story
The introduction of a fictional story is called the exposition. In the exposition, the author exposes key information to the reader so that the reader is able to “get into” the story. Generally, the author introduces the reader to the setting, the main character or characters, and a problem (sometimes called conflict) which involves the main character in the exposition of the story.
What is the setting where most of the action in the first chapter takes place? (Note that the setting refers to the time and place where the events in the novel occur. The actual time of this novel is not stated but you should be able to determine whether this novel is set in a modern or historical time period.)
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List the key characters who are introduced in the first chapter. Who is the main character?
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Describe the problem (or conflict) that the main character is facing in the first chapter.
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4. Author’s Craft: Understanding Literary Devices
Narrator and Point of View
When an author begins writing a story, he or she must decide how to tell the story and who should tell it.
Most books or stories are told from a third person point of view. The narrator (person telling the story) is not a character in the story, but is an outside observer who does not take part in the action of the story. The reader learns about the characters (how they think, feel and act) from this unknown narrator. The author uses the pronouns he, she and they when writing from the third person point of view.
In first person point of view, the narrator is a character in the story. The narrator actually takes part in the action of the story. When an author uses first person point of view to tell a story, the reader learns about events as the narrator learns about them. Everything we know about the other characters in the story is from what the narrator knows about the other characters and events. The narrator uses the pronouns I, we, and me.
Who is the narrator of this story? Is the narrator a character in the story?
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What point of view is Barbara Park using to tell The Kid in the Red Jacket? How do you know?
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5. Author’s Craft: Understanding Literary Devices
Flashback
As Howard begins to tell about his family’s move in Chapter 1, he stops talking about the move several times and begins to talk about events that happened earlier, before he and his family got in the car to go to Massachusetts. For instance, Howard interrupts the chronological (or time) sequence of events to think about an earlier time in his life – the first day of school with the friends he is leaving behind in Arizona.
When an author interrupts the time sequence of a story to go back to an earlier time, he or she is using a device known as a flashback. A flashback interrupts the time sequence [or chronological sequence] of the story to tell a part of the story that happened before the main action of the story. A flashback is really a story-within-a-story.
In his flashback, Howard tells the reader a little bit about his friends. He describes Thornsberry as being sensitive because he cried the first day of school. Why was Thornsberry crying? (Answer on the next page, please.)
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What does Howard remember about Roger on that first day of school?
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6. Reading Skill: Making Inferences and Drawing Conclusions
Authors seldom write down everything the reader needs to know to understand the story, but they often include hints or clues that help the reader use his or her own knowledge to understand the story.
In another flashback in the first chapter, Howard describes the day that the moving van arrived at his home. Howard tells his parents that he can’t open the door because he was in his pajamas. While Barbara Park provides the reader with this detail, she expects readers to understand what Howard is not saying. He has a bigger issue than just being in his pajamas.
Why was the fact he was in his pajamas a problem for Howard? (Hint: What kind of pajamas was he wearing? How does he like this?)
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Howard asks his parents, “Have you seen these things? Would someone please tell Nana that I’m too old for Porky Pig pajamas?” What does Howard want his grandmother to realize?
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7. Reading Skill: Compare and Contrast
Howard and his parents view the move from Arizona to Massachusetts differently. Often authors show readers how different characters view the same incident. Compare and contrast how Howard and his parents view the move using the Venn Diagram below.
Howard Howard’s Parents
Both
8. Reading Skill: Recognizing the Main Idea
One way readers can check their comprehension of any reading material is to summarize the main idea or ideas of the reading passage. Barbara Park does not give titles to the chapters in The Kid in the Red Jacket. Create a title for Chapter 1 that summarizes the main idea of the chapter. Be Creative!
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Chapter 2
9. Reading Skill: Understanding Vocabulary Chapters 1 and 2
Use the word bank to assist you in completing the crossword puzzle. The numbers in parentheses indicate the page/s where the word may be found in context in the book.
10. Author’s Craft: Writing Traits – Voice or Tone
Barbara Park is also the author of the Junie B. Jones series of early chapter books. When writing from the first person point of view, the author must make sure that the “voice” narrating the story is realistic or sounds real. The author must use words and ideas that the character would use and use the character’s voice which may be very different from the way that the author would write if he or she were writing in his or her own voice.
Do you think Mrs. Park succeeded in making Howard sound like a real kid? Why or why? What tone does Howard convey most of the time?
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11. Author’s Craft: Literary Devices – Figurative Language – Similes
To help readers understand their story, authors paint pictures with words. One way authors do this is through the use of figurative language. Figurative language is a method by which authors describe something by comparing it to something else. In order to understand the pictures the author paints with figurative language, readers need to be able to recognize figurative language when it occurs in a story.
One figurative language device that authors frequently use is the simile. A simile is a comparison between two things using the words like or as. For example, she is busy as a bee is a simile comparing a busy girl to a worker bee because it uses the word as to compare a girl to a bee.
Read each example of a simile in the table below. Identify the word which makes the expression a simile and describe in words or draw a picture of the image the simile creates in your mind.
Figurative Language Example / Word Which Makes this Phrase a Simile / My Visualization (The Picture in My Mind) of What This Phrase Means(Use Text or Draw a Picture)
“He had just discovered his hands, and he kept opening and closing them like they were some great new invention.” (p. 4)
“I’ve never been what you’d call a good little traveler; my mother buys a bunch of stuff to keep me busy so I won’t gripe. When you think about it, it’s kind of insulting – like feeding a gorilla a bunch of bananas so he won’t bother you.” (p. 7)
“She made me sound like a Nerf ball.” (p. 8)
12. Reading Skill: Reading for Details
What is Howard’s reaction when he learns his new address? Why do you think Howard reacted this way?
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What is the name of Howard’s new street?
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13. Reading Strategy: Making Connections
Howard says that talking with Molly Vera Thompson is “like being in the Twilight Zone.”
What does he mean? If you were Howard, what would you think about Molly? Do you think you would like to have her for a friend? Why or why not?
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14. Reading Strategy: Making Predictions
Good readers often think about what may happen later in a book as they are reading.
They use clues that the author has given them, their own background knowledge and the connections they have made to make a guess or predict what may happen in the story. Make a prediction about the relationship between Howard and Molly. Do you think they will become friends? Why or why not?
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Chapter 3
15. Reading Skill: Recognizing Fact and Opinion
Recognizing the difference between facts, information that can be proven true or not, and opinions, which are someone's personal values expressed is an important skill in understanding text. Read each of the following statements from or about The Kid in the Red Jacket. Decide whether the statement is a fact (can be proven true or false), or an opinion (what a character or person thinks).
Statement / Fact or OpinionHoward says, “They never made it sound like what it really was – rotten.
Howard wants his grandmother to know that he is too old for Porky Pig pajamas.
Bill has a strong dog odor.
Howard’s new room is at least twice the size of his old room in Arizona.
The house on the corner reminded Howard of a gigantic, old-fashioned doll house.
I could tell right away that the girl was weird.
Molly has frizzy red hair.
Howard thinks Molly is annoying.
Molly’s parents are divorced, and she lives with her grandmother.
16. Reading Strategy: Making Inferences and Drawing Conclusions
What does Howard find out about Molly that makes him change his mind about asking her to go home? Why do you think this information makes Howard act differently? How does Molly’s statement change the mood of the story at that point?
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Chapter 4
17. Author’s Craft: Literary Elements – Problem / Conflict
Howard has to deal with several problems (or conflicts) during the course of The Kid in the Red Jacket. A problem or conflict is a necessary ingredient for any story.
The Jeeter family’s move from Arizona to Massachusetts is the first problem that occurs in the story. Once Howard’s family arrives in Massachusetts, other problems occur in Howard’s life. What are some of the new problems that Howard must solve now that he is in Massachusetts? (Give at least two examples.)
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It is the choices that the characters make when dealing with these problems that make a story. Without conflict there is no story.
18. Reading Strategy: Making Connections
As Howard reflects upon his first day at a new school, he decides “that the hardest thing about being a new kid is that everyone gawks at you.” Do you agree? What do you think would be the hardest thing about being a new kid at school?
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19. Reading Skill: Understanding Vocabulary Chapters 3 and 4
Match the word with its definition. The numbers in parentheses indicate the page/s where the word may be found in context in the book.
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1. ______blurted (36)
2. ______lurking (40)
3. ______alert (42)
4. ______gawks (44)
5. ______informed (47)
a. Instructed or told
b. awake
c. sneaking
d. stare
e. spoke without thinking
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Chapter 5
20. Author’s Craft: Literary Elements – Understanding Character
The Kid in the Red Jacket is a character driven novel. That means it depends on the characters and the decisions they make to determine the action of the story.
Good authors know that they must create characters that seem real and are believable even when writing fiction. Characterization is the process through which the writer reveals the personality of the characters in the story through their speech, thoughts, feelings, actions and effect on others.
At this point in the story we know quite a bit about Howard and Molly. Use the Venn Diagram below to compare and contrast Howard and Molly.
Howard Molly
Both
Do you think Howard and Molly are realistic characters? Support your answer with evidence from the novel.