Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Asher, Jay. Thirteen Reasons Why. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2007.

Lexile Level: 550L

Recommended For: Grades 6-12

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Summary: Clay Jensen, a senior in high school, comes home to find a mysterious package filled with thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate, Hannah Baker, who committed suicide two weeks before. He spends a heartbreaking night listening to all thirteen tapes with Hannah’s voice explaining what and who lead her to suicide.

Selling Tool: Please click here for a book talk on Thirteen Reasons Why.

Standards:

AASL: 1.1.1 Follow an inquiry-based process in seeking knowledge in curricular subjects and make the real world connection for using this process in own life.

1.1.7 Make sense of information gathered from diverse sources by identifying misconceptions, main and supporting ideas, conflicting information, and point of view or bias.

Common Core Standards:

CC.8.R.I.1 Key Ideas and Details: Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

CC.7.R.I.2 Key Ideas and Details: Determine two or more central ideas in a text and analyze their developments over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.

Learning Goal: Students will use poetry as a way of relating to the characters in the novel, Thirteen Reasons Why. Throughout the book, the main character, Hannah, describes how she likes and relates to poetry. She uses several lines from Shakespeare and often speaks in a very poetic way. Students will practice writing their own poems.

Learning Objectives:

1. Students will discuss,  in small groups, coping mechanisms and different resources available to them to deal with stress and bullying.
2. Students will discuss, as a class, ways to help peers who are struggling emotionally and psychologically.
3. Students will use the website www.pongoteenwriting.org to find two poems written by teens that provoke some feeling for them.
4. Students will connect the poems they found to the text, Thirteen Reason Why and try to find connections shared with Hannah and her problems. The poem “I Just Thought You Should Know” on pongoteenwriting.org is addressed to Hannah and may be helpful.
5. Students will pick a character from the book (either Clay, Hannah, or any of the main subjects of the tapes) and write a poem from their point of view. Students may use the writing activities on the cite as a guide.

Learning Outcome:

1. Students will be able to identify ways to cope with stress and help peers in need.
2. Students will understand the effects of bullying.
3. Students will create original poetry relating to one of the characters from the book.