HEAT, by Mike Lupica: A Book Club Workbook & Key

Perfect for use during baseball season, this is a ready-to-use, 29-page packet. It is designed to use with a literature circle or book club group composed of students in grades 5-7 who are reading the #1 New York Times Best Seller, HEAT. Included is a bookmark master for keeping track of vocabulary words, a 20 page student workbook, plus an answer key. The student workbook divides the text into five reading assignments with questions and activities to go with each one; there is also a Culminating Activities page with ideas for further student research. The questions and tasks in this booklet reinforce the skills that good readers and writers need to understand and maintain. These include comprehension, visualizing, point-of-view, summarizing, connecting to the text, recognizing character traits, and using context to understand expressive language. The packet gives students needed practice in writing to explain their thinking and to demonstrate their understanding. Also included is a chart for English translations of Spanish words used in the text. Created by Jean Martin

The student booklet is designed for independent work so that students can work on this in class while the teacher is meeting with another group. In my classroom students were responsible for completing one reading assignment with the accompanying questions/activities each week. They would then meet once a week with me (or an aide or a parent), along with the other students reading the same book (we called this a "book club" meeting) to discuss the book and review the assignments. The workbook can also be used as a project to be completed at home or it could be used with a whole class rather than a smaller group.

HEAT in a nutshell:
TOPPING the New York Times Best Seller list in 2006, this book is a great choice for baseball fans. The story takes place in the South Bronx area of New York where twelve year old Michael Arroyo seems to be the about the best Little League player around; so good, in fact, that some suspect he's older than 12. Escaping Cuba in a boat with his father and brother, Michael has no birth certificate to prove his age. Complicating matters, Michael harbors a secret that he and his brother fight to keep hidden. This book provides lots of baseball jargon, suspense, and hope.
Appropriate for students in grades 5-7. Reading level approximately 6th grade.

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