Curious Dog and More

I enjoyed this book when I listened to it on CD last year. Re-reading and discussing the book in class helped me to think about the book more deeply. I really like discussing books in book clubs or literature circles, and I would love to find a way to "best practice" this in my classroom. I am hoping that our choice selection of Flush can be used in my 6th grade Science curriculum. We learn about environmental issues and write persuasive essays to encourage youngsters to make a difference. We read several books last year in the Literacy class I taught, but I did not have a great plan for pre-reading and post-reading activities. I think that now I recognize the importance of activating prior knowledge and interest for a subject before the reading begins. Back to Curious Incident...
I was the literary luminary of the group, and I picked out interesting vocabulary from the book. One thing I really enjoyed about Christopher as the narrator was his explanation of terms and ideas. He often explained from his perspective what a word meant, and that helped the audience see the world through his (autistic) eyes. One example I picked out was rhetorical. While most of us know what that means, it added to Christopher's character development early on to read his reaction to Siobhad explanation of a question that you don't answer. Hmmm...
There is so much to take from this book... you could study it for weeks (all the math, science) or enjoy a quick "1-hour" read. Either way, it's more fun than textbook reading, so I'll remember that for my students' sake.