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Literature-based Skill Building

Freak the Mighty, Chapter 19

The following are comprehension activities related to the novel Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick, chapter 19. NOTE: Keep reading fun! Choose some, but not all, the exercises for each chapter. It may be appropriate to just to do a learning log, or to discuss activities and answers instead of writing things down.

Chapter Nineteen: Into the Black Down Under

1. Learning Log

A. Give this chapter a new title. Consider what happened and the feelings of the chapter.
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B. Setting: Identify the setting of beginning of this chapter.
time ________________________________________
place _______________________________________________
mood (calm, happy, scared, excited) __________________________________________________

C. Summarize what happens in this chapter: ______________________________________________________________________________________

D. Questions:

Ask a question about something that happened in this chapter, or what might happen.
_________________________________________________________________________________________

2. Vocabulary: Review words daily

3. New Skill: Similarities and Differences (Compare/Contrast)

To understand things around us, it helps to think of how they are alike, and how they are adifferent. This is called "comparing and contrasting." One way to show this visually is with a chart showing some things that two things "have in common" (ways they are alike), and showing other ways that they are different.

We usually compare things that do have a lot in common. Comparing and contrasting an earthworm and a bathtub probably isn't very useful. Looking at how earthworms and snakes are similar and different is more interesting to most folks.

Start with good questions that can be answered about BOTH things. Look for questions that are meaningful. The letter that begins the name of something is usually not a good choice; what it is used for is. Also, compare the same kinds of information -- make sure you are answering the same question about both things. If you say that baseball is often showed on television, and basketball is played indoors, I can't tell whether basketball is shown on television or baseball played indoors.

Some good things to compare and contrast:

books and movies
basketball and baseball
Pizza and spaghetti
LD classes and regular classes
Freak and Max
Grim and Iggy
Max's father's gun and Freak's gun

Questions	Pizza (differences)	*Pizza and* spaghetti** (similarities)	Spaghetti (differences)
What kind of sauce?	--	usually have tomato sauce	--
Is there only one kind?	--	There are different kinds	--
What's on the bottom?	has a crust under the tomato sauce	--	has spaghetti noodles under the tomato sauce
How do you eat it?	Usually eaten with your hands	--	Usually eaten with a fork

Your turn!

Fill in this chart:

Questions	Freak (differences)	Max and Freak (similarities)	Max (differences)
Where does he go to school?
Is he a good student or not?
How big is he?
Does he blend in with a group, or get treated differently?

Try this one!

Questions	Max's room in his house (differences)	*Max's room and* the room where his father takes him in CHapter 19** (similarities)	The room where his father takes him (differences)
Is it upstairs or downstairs?

DOes Max like it, and why?

4. INferences

1. Loretta says that the plan is: "Iggy keeps him [Max's father] busy while I get you loose... there's enough cops up there to start a war." What can you infer from this?
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