Julie Otsuka's riveting novel is just starting to make its way into secondary english curriculum. If you're consdering teaching it, I highly recommend it: students are deeply moved by it, and it provides many opportunities to discuss style and rhetorical techniques used by authors to create meaning.

There are very few resources available for this novel, so I'm pleased to offer mine, which I think match the complexity of the work appropriately. I should note that, in a rush because I had barely two weeks to cover the book and end the school year, my unit is not fully developed; however, there's a lot here to get you started; the essay questions in particular are rich and yielded really excellent work from my students. Adapt at will and let me know what you come up with (mrcawn@hotmail.com)

FYI: As a rule, my zip files for teaching a novel do not lay out step-by-step plans how to teach the book--that's up to you. Instead, what I give you is all of my resources to use at your disposition; some of the resources here I didn't even end up using, though I figured you might find them useful. Use these files to enhance your teaching style and your students' learning needs...