Crackback

Coy, John. (2005). Crackback. New York, New York: Scholastic, Inc.

Brief Annotation: Miles Manning is a junior in high school who is struggling with the ability to respect adults who may not deserve his respect, changing friendships, romance, playing football, and difficulties in his family. This story is about a boy who’s life was football then everything starts to change: the coach, friendships, family, and personal romances. Miles Manning struggles with learning how to deal with all the change in a respectful, responsible way.

Genre: Sports Fiction

Grade Level: 7-12

Readers who will like this: Readers who can relate to all the struggles teenagers go through on a daily basis. The change in good friends, role models, and of course the feelings of romance are all emotions and feelings teenagers and even young children experience daily, which makes this book fun to read.

Response/Rating (1-4): **** This book is a fantastic book that illustrates the life of an average teenage boy who experiences struggles that help develop and mature a teenager. Miles Manning is confronted with decisions that can ruin life-long friendships, encourage a romance to blossom, help his family, and to keep his position on the football team. I can personally relate to all of these experiences from when I was a teenager and it is interesting to see how I would have dealt with similar experiences compared to Miles.

One question you would ask before a read aloud: What are some decisions you have to make that could affect your friendships, family, relationships?

Instructional Strategy: Sketch-to-Stretch Strategy. This strategy is a visual activity that allows students to deepen their understanding of what they read in a chapter book. The students will create drawings of people and symbols to illustrate what a chapter, main point, a character means to them. Teachers can do this activity as a class a few times before they draw on their own. Students will realize that there is no correct interpretation and teachers can help students focus on their interpretation rather than their artistic ability.

This activity allows students to take time to reflect on the story and what information/meaning they got out of it. Since this book is about a boy in high school, struggling with teenage problems, most students will be able to relate and make their own interpretations of the book. I enjoy this activity also for the reason that students will deepen their comprehension of the book. If some areas aren’t understood very well, this activity can help clarify some aspects of the book.