Life Lessons in Literature - Touching Spirit Bear

As an eighth grade teacher, I see that adolescents are often uninterested in reading and unmotivated to read. When coupled with low-income socioeconomics and a twenty-eight percent special education population school-wide, our students are even less likely to enjoy reading, let alone be able to read on grade-level. Therefore, finding the right novel in which students can connect to the character or events is crucial in my classroom. Alderson Middle School recently transitioned from an elementary school to a middle school. Unfortunately, during the transition, our literacy library containing class novels was not updated to include seventh and eighth grade reading, let alone current, high-interest titles. As I have began my doctoral studies in Language Literacy, I have become even more aware of the need for high interest novels. Last summer, I began looking into the Young Adult Literature more carefully. I came across Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen and realized what a valuable resource it could be in the classroom. This particular book has a protagonist with real-world problems that my students can identify with, despite the fact that the protagonist is Anglo and my students are mostly African-American. Touching Spirit Bear is about an adolescent who is being reared in an abusive environment. He himself becomes abusive and alters another boy's life forever. This is a story of healing, conflict-resolution and forgiveness of one's self and of others. I cannot think of a better story for my students to read and internalize. Touching Spirit Bear allows me to set-up literature circles which go beyond reading. We will incorporate anger management topics into the classroom as well as advisory classes. I will incorporate this unit in conjunction with the science class' study of environmental issues and the animal kingdom. Students will be presented with a deeper understanding of the Native American culture and the impact of the human being on our environment. Students will be required to keep journals while reading the book and participate in literature discussions. We will round out our unit with each student creating a totem pole to symbolize his/her own personal struggles and concerns, as does the protagonist in the novel. I am asking for a class set of Touching Spirit Bear, the wooden dowels, and markers to allow students to create totem poles symbolizing their own personal journey through the story. The totem poles they create will be an art-project I know they will value forever.