Book Club Blog

Title: Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key

Author: Jack Gantos

Illustrator: N/A

Year: 1998

Recommended For: Grade 5 & Up.






 

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1. SOCIAL STUDIES RESOURCE : This blog contains teaching suggestions a teacher can use when teaching  ADHD and the book with students.
2. SOCIAL STUDIES RESOURCE : These Essays motivate students to critically think in Joey's perspective to help them understand the difficulties that come with disabilities.



1. ARTS RESOURCE : This website lists some art activities related to the book. By scrolling down to "Classroom Connections" you will find art activities, as well as activities for language arts, science, safety, and history.
2. ARTS RESOURCE : This website suggests different types of self-portraits that students can draw to express their self-awareness. (Discuss their differences and values)




(FICTIONAL-NARRATIVE BOOK)

     Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key is a realistic fiction book about an elementary school boy, Joey Pigza. This chapter book is the first of four books in the Joey Pigza series written by Jack Gantos.  Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, a national book award finalist, is 15 chapters long, approximately 154 pages, and is grade level appropriate for fifth graders.  This book is a told in first person by the main character Joey Pigza. Joey discusses his struggle with sitting still and being good in school due to his “dud meds” he takes since he suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Joey cannot control his actions, even when he knows they are wrong. Along with Joey’s struggles with his medication, which only seems to last during the morning, Joey has family problems at home. At a young age Joey’s father abandoned him and his mother. His mother, Fran, who is an alcoholic, followed after his father, leaving Joey in the care of his grandmother who treated him badly. Eventually his mother straightened up and returned to take care of him, however, she still struggled with alcohol and providing for the two of them.
     ADHD, also known as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, was given this current name in 1987. However, the common affects of the disorder,such as inattentiveness and fidgeting, have been notice and documented for centuries, dating back to 1798 when Sir Alexander Crichton, a Scottish doctor studied students with "mental restlessness." 
     Jack Gantos first got his ideas about Joey Pigza when he visited a school in Pennsylvania talking about writing. Jack observed a child in the front of the room that was spinning around the seat of his chair. At that time, many teachers put their overactive students in the front of the class. When Gantos began telling jokes, this child would answer the punch line before anyone else. He was having fun until all of a sudden he became worried he did not take his medicine and ran to the nurse's office. This child made Gantos look back at his childhood. Growing up Jack Gantos had moved 40 times and met many children like the one from Pennsylvania. After his visit to the school in Pennsylvania, Gantos wrote a description about the active child who sat in the front row in his journal. The next day, Gantos reread the journal entry and decided to write more. Having liked the what he wrote, Joey Pigza was born. 

Element of Social Justice:
1. SELF-LOVE & KNOWLEDGE
This particular element of social justice focuses on the importance of different aspects of their identity: a sense of pride in their culture, heritage, ethnicity/race, religion, skin tone, gender, and much more. In the book, "Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key", such an element applies as an example of understanding differences. 
In this book, Joey learns about "self." Joey knows that he is a problem child but that he cannot help it. Throughout his story, Joey struggles to love himself. He tries very hard to be like the rest of the students, as well as help as much as possible. However, when he tries to help, Joey makes bad decisions, which only end with someone getting hurt. Towards the end of the book Joey is finally able to love himself and the fact that he has a disability when he is sent to a special education center. It is here that Joey also learns it is okay to have differences and disabilities. 


NJ Core Curriculum Standards:
SOCIAL STUDIES
6.3.4.A.3: Select a local issue and develop a group action plan to inform school and/or community members about the issue.

ART
1.4.P.A.3: Describe feelings and reactions and respond in an increasingly informed manner to stories and dramatic performances.    
1.4.5.A.3: Demonstrate how art communicates ideas about personal and social values and is inspired by an individual’s imagination and frame of reference (e.g., personal, social, political, historical context).                                                                                        



ACTIVITY
The teacher will suggest the students to look at some of the portraits of different people (if not, the students can draw their own portraits, expressing their self-awareness and feelings). With the portraits, the students will express what "emotions" and "expressions" they see when they look at the portrait. What else can they see in the portraits? Is there any message being sent out? While discussing about these different portraits, they can see the differences between all people, but be able to understand that everyone is connected to one another. Meaning, if a person in the portrait seems sad, and scared, the students can connect to that particular portrait by saying, "Oh, I once was sad when my dog died. I think my expression was probably similar to that person". Sharing difficulties of others will also encourage the students to create interpersonal and intrapersonal connections.




Letter To Joey:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE LETTER! :)
      

Critique :

(HOW THE AUTHOR HELPS US CONNECT TO PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES)

The author, Jack Gantos, takes the reader on a journey through Joey Pigza's everyday life. This novel allows the reader to understand the different types of difficulties that children with ADHD go through on a daily basis. Joey is constantly going through a struggle, whether he is at home or in the classroom.  Joey is unable to follow instructions as he wishes to, he runs with scissors, puts his finger in the pencil sharpener, and he also swallows the key attached to the string, hoping to take the key back out by pulling on the string.This book presents many types of misbehavior's which cause him to fall into constant trouble. This shows the readers that these are things that Joey can not help and  which he has no control over. This book allows us to guide other people (friends, classmates, peers) into the right direction by forming a welcomed, loving classroom setting.