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Book Bodies Project Brings Stories to Life

Lindsey King's eighth-grade English classes demonstrate their knowledge of summer reading selections.
Summer reading assignments help fill the hot, lazy days (and minimize screen time!), but having students start the school year ready to discuss a few books also helps them become engaged with each other and their new teachers.

This year’s eighth-graders read Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse, a book that came highly recommended by GPS librarians. “Last year the rising eighth-graders read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank,” says Catherine Ingalls, Head of the English Department, “and while I think it is a beautiful text and enjoy it more with every read, it didn’t quite catch the students' attention as I had hoped.”

Like The Diary of a Young Girl, Girl in the Blue Coat tells the story of the Nazi occupation but through the point of view of a girl in Amsterdam in 1943 who is not Jewish, who gradually comes to learn what the occupation means for her friends, Jewish neighbors, and her city. “It seems to explore some of the same themes while providing an interesting read,” Ingalls adds. Students will instead read excerpts from Frank’s book later this fall.

In addition to Girl in the Blue Coat, students read another book of their choice as well as one from the list of recommended titles: The Book Thief, Born a Crime, What to Say Next, Long Way Down, When You Reach Me, Secret Life of Bees, or Code Name Verity.

According to Ingalls, “All the books are meant to provide an appropriately challenging reading experience, while allowing space for personal choice. Most of the books have themes or settings that will tie in with at least one other book we will read this year in eighth grade. They all, to a degree, ask questions about one’s tolerance or intolerance of people different from themselves.”

For English teacher Lindsey King, the summer reading list represented an overarching theme of widening the world view of the reader; her personal favorite was What to Say Next, a story of unexpected friendship. “I think it should be required reading for every student,” King says.

Presented with the challenge to discuss seven books that not each girl read and cover settings from WWII to modern-day high school, King came up with an interdisciplinary way to take a deeper dive into the important themes covered in each novel.

As a new teacher at GPS, King designed a project she titled Book Bodies, incorporating the summer reading assignments, as a way for her to get to know her students and they each other. Students worked in pairs or small groups with others who had read the same book. King then assigned each group a body part—head, arms, torso, or legs—and the girls designed each part to reflect a portion of the story.

“I gave them a set of questions geared toward that image,” King says. “The book group then worked to visually represent the answers on the cutout using symbols, colors, and details.”  

For example, those with a head were to communicate the main character's thoughts, fears, and perceptions of how they think about the world. Arms were adorned with tattoos and images to show strengths and major actions—how the characters responded to factors in their lives both in and out of their control. “On the legs, they could make patches that depict scenes and show how the character makes a difference by the end of the novel,” King says. “Girls tend to picture the characters when they read a story, so this gives them a way to express their interpretations.”

While the girls work, King learns not only how deeply they understand the themes, characterization, and concepts in the novels, she also discovers much about each girl. “I can see who my good leaders are and who my support team members are,” she says. “Who is an artist, who is a good listener, and which students may struggle to stay on task.”

Once the body parts are completed, King assembles them and displays them in the halls outside the classroom—bodies created with pieces designed by girls across all of her eighth-grade English classes. “Girls like to create symbols and make connections with tangible objects—what they see in their heads and then put it on paper—and color and imagery help them express themselves,” she explains.

Most of all, the girls get a chance to collaborate with each other. Along the way, the Book Bodies project allows them to deepen their understanding of the characters and make thematic connections to the book while becoming empathetic to characters who aren’t like themselves. Perhaps they will draw similar connections to the girls sitting next to them in class this year.
 
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