Unit Highlights and Novels
How we see ourselves in light of how others see us is the work of identity. This concept is the key to understanding characters we meet in novels. Those characters, then, guide us through our daily interactions, asking us to reflect upon our heroes and archetypes we meet throughout our days. We see and learn that these characters regularly act and react according to their environment and circumstance. We watch as these characters face challenges and question their identity. These characters serve as role models for our own lives. We learn that our true heroes are often not our heroes for what they’ve accomplished, but rather for what they have accepted within themselves. By honoring characters with disabilities, I hope to show my students the power of this acceptance. Therefore, the unit will open with brining awareness to individual versus collective identity.
My main overarching question is, “How do popular attitudes, perceptions, and limitations affect a person’s identity at any place and time?” Central to this question is the awareness from Rosemarie Garland-Thompson that our society does not fully recognize and validate human variation. Through small-group experiences and discussions, students can be more specific when reading about a particular disability, or sharing personal experiences. Through these stories, I want students to know how to support and interact with others facing a physical or mental difference. Through deep character analysis, I want my students to know that even with outside influences impacting their identity with definitions they do not honor, they themselves are in control of their own evolving personal narrative. This lens may help them step out of their own challenges towards a new vision for what is possible in the world, and may encourage them to advocate for others.
Novels Whose Main Characters are Physically Disabled
The main reading will come from novels with fictional characters. I am dividing the readings by fourth and fifth-grade levels, but these titles can be used interchangeably well into sixth or
seventh grade as seen fitting. Fifth grade students will meet Melody, from the book Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper. Melody is an 11-year-old with cerebral palsy who is unable to communicate. Everyone around Melody (teachers and doctors included) believe she is incapable of learning. Students will come to know the truth about Melody’s capabilities due to an assistive device that finally allows her to share what she thinks and knows. Melody is more than what her environment says she is. But, when we can’t/don’t have the tools to properly communicate, our voice literally cannot be heard. We will delve into character traits to describe Melody’s transformations throughout the text and identify literary themes which highlight them.
Fourth graders will meet August Pullman, from the book Wonder by R.J. Palacio. Auggie, due to serious cranial-facial deformities and other physical ailments, has been homeschooled up until his fifth-grade year, when his parents decide he is physically stable enough to attend mainstream school. Students will learn of Auggie’s struggles with identity through multiple character perspectives, which illustrate different sides of the same coin. We will read this text looking closely at character traits, literary themes, and also point-of-view.
Both stories allow the reader to access the character’s thoughts directly, and to sympathize with the character’s struggles from a safe, fictional distance. Since the characters are fictional, the students have the accessibility of navigating through someone’s life with less mental conflict over understanding their character’s conditions. These protagonists allow students to see children outside the norm with the same wants for love and acceptance that we all have. Through small-group experiences and discussions, students can be more specific when reading about a particular disability, or sharing personal experiences.
El Deafo by Cece Bell is a graphic memoir steeped with images to change the perception of the disabled as victim, to that of superhero. Bell was prescribed a sonic ear at the age of four, after a bout of meningitis. She shows the reader the indignities of having to wear this device on her chest throughout her school years and devises an alter-ego of the superhero El Deafo to maneuver her way through those years. Through this counterstory, she characterizes herself and her classmates as rabbits. Since the graphic novel is a current popular literary form, both grades will access this text and have the opportunity to create a fictionalized, disabled alter-ego character through graphic expression.
Novels Whose Main Characters are Cognitively Atypical
Both of those above novels deal with children who are differently abled physically and are otherwise considered cognitively “normal”. August’s and Melody’s physical impairments mask their cognitive abilities. I would like to contrast their stories with several novel selections which tackle intellectual disabilities. The first novel, and perhaps most well-known, is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. The popularity of this book-turned-play is based on the character of Christopher, and his, as he himself states, “behavioral difficulties.”
The author himself calls the text more than a book about a kid with Asperger’s, stating, “…if anything it is a novel about difference, about being an outsider, about seeing the world in a surprising and revealing way.”9
Next is Rain, Reign, by Ann M. Martin. In this novel, we meet the main character Rose Howard, a girl with Asperger’s syndrome and an obsession with homonyms. Rose’s questioning by her at times abusive father is at the core of her individual identity. When she is kicked off the bus after a particular incident he tells her, “Why can’t you be normal like other kids?”
Last is Fish in a Tree, by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. In this text, we meet Ally, who tries to hide her dyslexia. Of course, she tries to hide the fact that she can’t read with attitude and bad behavior. Her life starts to change when a teacher, Mr. Daniels, recognizes where Ally’s attitude is coming from, and utilizes a host of different learning style approaches to help Ally access words on a page. Since dyslexia and other learning disabilities often lead to labelling classmates as dumb, this text has the power to uplift elementary classroom culture everywhere.
Identity of Siblings of Persons with Disabilities
Another aspect of the identity of persons with disabilities that we will study considers effects on the family. Texts utilized will highlight the disabled sibling’s perspective. August’s sister’s experiences with having a disabled brother are brought to light and show how the entire family is impacted by a first-person account from her point of view. Melody faces her parents having a new child, and overhears their concerns about their next child being born with similar challenges. To further look at the impact of disability on the identity of siblings, we will utilize Rules by Cynthia Lord, and Riding the Bus with My Sister by Rachel Simon. In Lord’s novel, we find Catherine, a 12-year-old girl who is frustrated by her autistic brother. Catherine’s world becomes more challenging when she develops a friendship with a paraplegic. Simon’s book is an autobiographical account of life with her disabled sister, told in the narrative style. The selection also has adult characters, and passages will be excerpted based upon age-appropriate usage.
Another source included to explore sibling identity will be the graphic novel Epileptic by David B. Tapping into the accessibility of the graphic novel form, this text also deals with issues of sibling identity through unexpected trauma. This autobiography chronicles the abrupt change in the author’s identity when his brother was struck with epilepsy at age eleven.
In each reading, students will explore the status of the character and how that character’s thoughts, actions, and self-perceptions change over time based upon their interactions with peers/others. What types of responses and actions were beneficial to their identity? Which were harmful? How does one stay positive and hopeful despite victimization?
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