Hello everyone!
It is so wonderful to see you today.
I am your reading coach, Minhee Teacher.
Today, we are diving back into the beautiful and heart-stirring
book, Wonder.
We are looking at Part Four, which is all about Jack's War.
Let us pretend we are movie directors today.
We are holding a movie camera, looking through the lens.
We are not just reading words on a page; we are watching a movie
play out in our minds.
Let us yell, "Action!" and look at our first scene.
In our first scene, the camera pans across a busy school hallway
on Halloween.
Everyone is wearing masks.
Jack is hanging out with Julian and the other popular boys.
Julian says something terrible about Auggie's face.
He says, if he looked like that, he would kill himself.
Jack is wearing a mask, so he feels invisible.
He laughs along.
But wait!
Let us pan the camera to the left.
There is a boy in a Bleeding Scream costume standing nearby.
That is Auggie.
He hears everything.
In the next scene, the camera cuts to the classroom the next
day.
Auggie stops talking to Jack.
Jack is totally confused.
Then, the camera zooms in on Jack's face as he suddenly realizes
what happened.
He remembers his laugh on Halloween.
He feels a cold, heavy rock drop in his stomach.
He feels terrible.
In our final scene, Julian calls Auggie a freak again.
Jack cannot take it anymore.
He does not laugh this time.
Instead, he stands up for his friend and punches Julian right in
the face!
Now, the school is divided.
It is a total war between the students.
Let us think about why this happened.
Why did Jack laugh in the first place?
He did not hate Auggie.
He actually liked him!
But he was scared.
He wanted the popular kids to like him.
This is called peer pressure.
When we are scared of being left out, we sometimes do bad
things.
But Jack learns a big lesson.
If you stay silent when someone is being bullied, or if you
laugh along, you are helping the bully.
You become part of the problem.
But the beautiful thing about Jack is that he realizes his
mistake.
He decides that being a true friend is much more important than
being popular.
Real friendship means fixing your mistakes.
Let us look at some key words our characters use in this movie
so we can use them too.
First is the word "war." Usually, a war is a big fight between
countries.
But here, it is a school war where kids split into groups and
stop talking to each other.
Second, we have "hit man." A hit man is a dangerous person paid
to hurt someone.
In our story, Julian makes up a silly rumor that Jack hired a
hit man to get him!
It is a dramatic school rumor.
Third is "ex-friend." The prefix "ex" means former or past.
So an ex-friend is someone who used to be your friend but is not
anymore.
Jack became Auggie's ex-friend for a little while because of his
mistake.
Fourth is the word "punch." To punch means to hit someone hard
with a closed fist.
Jack punches Julian because Julian was being mean to Auggie.
And fifth is "detention." This is a punishment where you have to
stay after school in a quiet room.
Jack gets detention for fighting Julian.
Now, let us practice speaking like our characters.
I will say a sentence, and I want you to repeat it right after
me with real emotion.
Imagine you are the character in the movie.
Ready?
Number one: I heard what they said and I laughed.
Number two: I became his ex-friend for a while.
Number three: I punched Julian because he was being mean.
Number four: I chose the wrong side at first.
Number five: Real friends say sorry and try again.
You did an amazing job reading and speaking with me today!
Before we turn off our movie camera, I want you to think about
one final question.
Is it harder to be kind when your other friends are watching?
Think about it, and we will talk about it next time.
This is Minhee Teacher, signing off.
Keep reading, keep shining, and always choose kind!
See you next time!