Anne of Green Gables
There are many wonderful books that can be used to teach reading fluency and life lessons. One of the best books, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery is one such book. It is a sweet and heart-warming story of Anne, a young orphan girl who finds a home with an elderly brother and sister on the small farming island of Prince Edward Island in Canada. The couple was expecting a boy to help Matthew Cuthbert (the brother) with the farming duties. But a lucky mistake was made and it was a girl who was brought to them. The couple decided to keep the child, in spite of her impulsive and outspoken behaviors. Anne, who is very bright, excels at school. She has many friends and a young suitor who sparks Anne’s temper. However, his presence appears to inspire Anne’s competitive nature. This challenging relationship combined with Anne’s natural thirst for knowledge, excels her academically on to being top in her class and off to college.
This is classic piece of fiction set in the 1900 with Anne being “Anne a truthful character that has as many faults as she does perfections” (scholastic.com 2011) This novel is suitable for a variety of ages and can teach a multitude of lessons from the social influences and expectations, friendship, adapting to change and new experiences and adoption. Best of all this is a series so students who are introduced to this book early on, can continue to read about her adventures as she grows from an awkward young girl to a beautiful wife and mother.
There are movies that are very well done covering this life of Anne that could be viewed after the reading of the book. The first movie is based primarily on the first book and would be a nice viewing for the after the book was read. However the second movie combines multiple books and with the third movie too many liberties, were taken to make them useful in a classroom viewing.
For my activities I would used a word wall and crossword puzzles to help with the vocabulary lessons. This novel was created in 1908 and the words used in it are not something many of us may be as familiar with today. This novel does have an audio recording available on line which would be perfect for the students to hear the spoken word without the teacher reading it. I would also use group readings or paired readings so the student could practice reading aloud. Finally I would wrap up the book with a project of group plays based off of scenes from the book. Student would be allowed to read from the script but would still need to act out the play.
