Includes Common Core Curriculum Standards for Grade 9-10

Educators Guide

Copyright©Czarnota 2013

No portion of this educators guide may be recorded or printed for use except in the classroom without permission from the author.

Includes Common Core Curriculum Standards for Grade 9-10.

Thank you to educator Faye Hanson.

Looking at Literary Elements

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

The author began with the title of a period song for Breadline Blue, imagining it as the name of a character. After that it was a matter of giving the character a problem to solve within period context and developing the plot sequentially, while at the same time teaching the reader about the history of the era called the Great Depression.

Activity: Choose a song title from a historical period, create a character and problem to be solved within that period context. The song title can be anything in the story from a place to the name of a character. Plot a sequential timeline of events that will move your character toward solving the problem.

Correlates to Common Core Standard Writing: Text Types and Purposes 9-10.3

VOCABULARY AND USE OF LANGUAGE

Students should develop a list of unfamiliar words and terminology.Take note of how character dialect is used in the story and how it is written. How do these words portray time and place? Take a sample of the main character, Blue, from the story and correct it using conventions of standard English. How does it change the effect on the story and the character?

Correlates to Common Core Standard Reading Literature: Craft and Structure 9-10.4 and Language Conventions of Standard English 9-10.1

Vocabulary List:

Breadline

Vigilante

Vagrant

Migrant

Ne’er-do-wells

Appalachians

Pneumonia

Reckon

Downtrodden

Bib-overalls

Inclination

Inscription

Swell (noun)

Uppity

Satchel

Bulls

Bum

Tramp

Hobo

Big Rock Candy Mountain

Britches

Chicory

Hooverville

Hobo Jungle

Shantytown

Foreclosed

Hedonistic

Well-to-do

Skedaddle

Behoove

Queer

“Angelina”

“Uncle”

Bonafide

Gazebo

Five & Dime

Odd-job

Sassafras

“Kike”

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

Tree-sitter

Eleanor Roosevelt

Woody Guthrie

Bing Crosby

Susquehanna River

The “Pennsy” Line

Foodstuff

Midnight Special

Brakeman

Boilerman

Gondola

Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC)

Bindle

Hemophiliac

“Bones”

“Pansy”

Seven Come Eleven

Acey Deucey

Look-see

Traversed

Great Depression

Colic Remedy

Stickball

Cat’s cradle

Tuckered

Delaware River

Potomac River

U.S.S. Cassin

Philadelphia Naval Yard

U.S.S. Philadelphia

Potomac Yard (Pot Yard)

Greenwich Freight Yard

Paul Bunyan

Saginaw Joe

Veni Vidi Vici

“Bale of Straw”

“Beanery”

“Beanery Queen”

“Adam and Eve on a raft”

“Pile-driver”

Amelia Earhart

Hindenberg

Dirigible

Smithsonian

Marguerite LeHand

Fidgety

Motor coach

FORESHADOWING

For this story, the author chose to begin the book with the main character coming home, then telling his story. What clues are given in the opening paragraph that tell the reader something about the story before the plot unfolds? Name other places in the book where the author used foreshadowing. How does foreshadowing affect the readers’ thought process as they read? Discuss the various possibilities for the opening scene. With a writing partner, create an alternative action based on a section of this story. Use foreshadowing to make a potential reader “turn the page.” Give an oral pitch for your new story section as if you are giving a movie pitch to a group of producers.

Correlates to Common Core Standard: Speaking and Listening: Comprehension and Collaboration Literacy 9-10.1

CHARACTER ANALYSIS

Characters are driven by problems in most stories and those problems are sometimes caused by environment, whether it is social, physical or emotional. Breadline Blue is set during the Great Depression. How does Blue’s environment affect him? And how does environment play a role in his later discoveries in the book? If you were to rewrite Blue’s story, what other elements could you use to motivate and inspire Blue? Choose an incidental character from the story (one who does not play a large role in the plot) and create a back story about that character based on environmental factors and events during he Great Depression.

Correlates to Common Core Standard Reading Literature: Key Ideas and Details 9-10.2

THEMATIC CONNECTIONS

Discuss the themes present in the story. Make a list of quotes from the book that support these themes. Which theme is the main theme of the book? How does it develop through events and the character’s actions? Select an incidental theme (one that is not the main theme) and create a new plot line for that theme. (A plot line is a summary of what the story could be. It is not an entire story.) Deliver an oral argument from the perspective of one of the story characters in an effort to change Blue’s direction in the story.

Correlates to Common Core Standard Reading Literature: Key Ideas and Details

9-10.1, 9-10.2; Speaking and Listening 9-10.3

ESTABLISHING SETTING

The author did research for this book. Cite particular areas of the book that would require specific research and determine possible sources for this information. The author typically uses up to four sources for each area of research when possible.

Correlates to Common Core Standard ELA-Literacy Key Ideas and Details 9-10.1; Integration of Knowledge and Ideas 9-10.9

PRE-READING ACTIVITY

Help students understand the time and place of this story by reviewing the dates of the Great Depression, events leading up to it, and events immediately following it (cause and effect). Discuss some of the issues Americans faced during this time, including foreclosure, homelessness, hunger, joblessness. Discuss some of the social programs developed during this time, including the WPA and CCC, Social Security, and breadlines. Discuss racial prejudice, the Nazi movement and the KKK.

Look for places in the story where the author uses current events to establish the era and consider how characters react to those events. What is the author’s device or means of showing this? How did the author’s research and knowledge of history hep build the story?

Correlates to Common Core Standard Reading: Informational Text Key Ideas and Details 9-10.3; Writing: Research to Build and Present Knowledge .9-10.7, 9-10.9

AFTER READING Group Discussion

• Discuss dangers faced by young people who left home during the Great Depression and their reasons for leaving.

• What dangers do young people face today, if they choose to leave home? How are these dangers similar to or different than those faced by youth during the 1930s?

• How do you think people survive hardships such as those faced by the characters in the story?

• What events in the story change Blue’s purpose for visiting Washington?

• What promises does Blue make? Do you think he will keep them and how?

• Blue refers often to his family and their values. Do you have a voice from your family in your ears and what you they say? Share some family values and stories.

Correlates to Common Core Standard Speaking and Listening Comprehension and

Collaboration 9-10.1, 9-10.2 , 9-10.3; and Reading: Informational Text Key Ideas and Details 9-10.1, 9-10.3

CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS

The author had to determine where Blue would travel and when, and how that would correlate with current events of the time, as well as the effect it might have on the entire journey and Blue’s reactions to various situations. Create a timeline and discuss the tools the author used to exhibit the events on the timeline.

Imagine you are a screenwriter (someone translating a book into a form suitable for the movies). How would your story compare with Breadline Blue? Look at other stories in book and movie form to see how they compare. Why did the screenwriter make the choices they did for the story they told, versus the author of the book?

An author, whether historical fiction or science fiction for example, must have knowledge of their topic. Choose a subject, ask yourself a question about that writing subject, then conduct a research project to answer the question. Present your findings either as an essay, short subject story, oral report, or in-persona newscast. Use multiple sources.

Correlates to Common Core Standard Reading: Informational Text Key Ideas and Details 9-10.1, 9-10.3; Integration of Knowledge and Ideas .9-10.7 , 9-10.9 ; Writing: Research to Build and Present Knowledge .9-10.7 , 9-10.8, 9-10.9; Text Types and Purposes 9-10.3 ; Production and Distribution of Writing 9-10.4 , 9-10.5, 9-10.6; Speaking and Listening Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas 9-10.4, 9-10.6;

History/Social Studies Key Ideas and Details 9-10.1, 9-10.2; Craft and Structure 9-10.4

ABOUT THE BOOK

Sixteen-year-old William Saxton, called Blue by his friends, listens to the buzzsaw of his sickly father’s lungs and worries about his hardworking mother, night after sleepless night. Blue writes a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt in Washington, D.C., asking for help, but it goes unanswered. He decides to take matters into his own hands. With no more than food from the family icebox and a fishing pole, Blue runs away intending to hop the rails to D.C. where he plans to confront the First Lady. Blue knows little of the outside world beyond stories from the local barbershop. He is not prepared for the extent of the journey ahead, where he meets people who will help him, and others who have only their own interests in mind. Faced with hunger and the elements, but equipped with self-determination, Blue succeeds in reaching his destination. But the journey of has changed his purpose, and Blue will never be the same.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

As a storyteller, Lorna MacDonald Czarnota has delighted audiences in schools, libraries, festivals and conferences throughout the United States, Canada, and Ireland with traditional and original stories since 1985. Lorna specializes in original tales, adaptation of classic fairy tales often with music, Celtic, historical and healing story. Her historical presentations include Colonial America, Medieval, American Civil war, and the Dust Bowl. Lorna sang Depression era songs with the Blue Eagle String Band.

She is the author of Wicked Niagara: the Sinister Side of the Niagara Frontier; Legends, Lore and Secrets of Western New York; Medieval Tales That Kids Can Read and Tell; “One Lace Glove”; August House Book of Scary Stories; “The Bleeding Heart”; The Healing Heart Community.

Lorna is a member of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and The National Storytelling Network.

Lorna is a recipient of the Oracle Award from the National Storytelling Network, the Hopevale Incorporated Volunteer of the Year Award, Storytelling World Award, and was nominated as a Univera, United Way Community Hero.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Children of the Great Depression. Freedman, Russell (2005). Clarion Books; New York

The Great Depression in America: A Cultural Encyclopedia, Volume 2.Young, Nancy K. & William H.

Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression. Uys, Errol L.

(2003). Routledge, New York.

Internet:

Riding the Rails ▪

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Lifestyle

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Washington, D.C. ▪

Hoovervilles

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Hobos ▪

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Trains ▪

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Philadelphia ▪

Eleanor Roosevelt

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Timelines ▪

White House ▪

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