LessonsAdapting to Change
I arrived as the new child in the middle of the school year to a class where all of the other children had known each other since first grade.
—Alma Flor Ada, "Gilda, An Autobiographical Narrative," Launch Into Reading 1, p. 172
You arrive at your new school abroad. Everything seems so strange. You feel lost, not only when it comes to finding your classes, but lost in general. You miss your family and friends. It's all part of getting used to a new school. Alma Flor Ada writes about this in an autobiographical narrative called "Gilda," the story of a girl who goes to a new school.
The author of this story recalls how miserable she becomes when she started at a new school in the middle of the school year. She cannot see the board from her seat in the back of the room. She had learned a different way of doing math. She does not understand the grammar lessons. By reading the story, students will learn how the writer learned to adapt to this change.
Here is what students can expect to learn while reading this story.
- Connect the main ideas from the story to books, magazines, or other sources students may have read, or television shows they have seen.
- Recognize compound–complex sentences and punctuate them correctly.
- Recognize foreign words used in English.
- Support a response to literature with details from the selection.
Try This!
Do the exercises for "Gilda, An Autobiographical Narrative." For many of these exercises, you will need to work with a partner. Other exercises can be done individually. After completing a section by yourself, you should compare your answers with your partner. Then, check answers using the answer key. (To view the exercises, you may need to install Acrobat Reader.)