Author: Sherri L. Smith
Copyright: 2008
Publisher: Penguin Group
Publishing Location: New York
Reading Level:
--Grade Equivalent Level 4.2
--Lexile Level 680L
--Interest Level 6-8
Genre: Historical Fiction, Diversity
Description: Pride, Cultural Identity, WWII, Aviation, Women’s History
Delivery suggestions: small group, read aloud
Summary: Ida Mae wants nothing more than to be a pilot during WWII. She already knows how to fly her father’s crop dusting plane. But there is only one problem. Ida Mae is African American and they are not accepting applicants of her race. However her skin is light enough that she can pass as a white girl. Ida Mae learns that the Army has created the WASP, the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Ida Mae has to make the difficult decision to forsake her cultural identity and serve her country.
Electronic Resources:
Writing Activity: Students will create their own poems for two voices based on themes presented in the book
Copyright: 2008
Publisher: Penguin Group
Publishing Location: New York
Reading Level:
--Grade Equivalent Level 4.2
--Lexile Level 680L
--Interest Level 6-8
Genre: Historical Fiction, Diversity
Description: Pride, Cultural Identity, WWII, Aviation, Women’s History
Delivery suggestions: small group, read aloud
Summary: Ida Mae wants nothing more than to be a pilot during WWII. She already knows how to fly her father’s crop dusting plane. But there is only one problem. Ida Mae is African American and they are not accepting applicants of her race. However her skin is light enough that she can pass as a white girl. Ida Mae learns that the Army has created the WASP, the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Ida Mae has to make the difficult decision to forsake her cultural identity and serve her country.
Electronic Resources:
- Blabberize: Students can record themselves reading the poem that they have written.
- This website provides a lot of information about the women who joined the WASP program. http://waspmuseum.org/
Before, During, and After Reading Strategies:
- Before Reading: Students will research significant facts in American History during the period of 1939-1950. Students should consider events or achievements in science, technology, government, religion, education and the arts. Students would be divided into pairs and give one topic or year. Students would then write their facts down on an index card which would then be fixed to the wall in chronological order. This activity will provide background knowledge for students before reading the book.
- During Reading: Have students keep a journal. Have them answer what has happened in the text so far, as well as note any key details. Allow students to write, draw, or a combination of the two within the journal in order to allow for them to fully express the meaning of the story for them.
- After Reading: students will create their own poems for two voices based on their reactions to the book.
- Use this book to teach:
- Social studies and diversity and women’s history and rights
- Social studies and women in the armed services
- Elements of Historical Fiction
Key Vocabulary:
Phonograph – a record player
Trolley – short for trolley car or trolley bus- a type of street car
Solemn – formal and dignified
Rosaries – a form of devotion in the form of a string of beads
Uppity – self- important, arrogant
Studebaker- a type of car
Rationing – limiting the amount of a resource a person or group is allowed to have.
Writing Activity: Students will create their own poems for two voices based on themes presented in the book