I Survived Series
Find all the books here or click on the image below to see all the books on the author’s website.
These books work really well at different levels. I have used them at the end of year 2 (12 year olds) in AHS, and in year 3 and 4 at Mittelschule. Since the stories are really riveting page-turners, these books will also work at much higher levels. The children cannot put them down – because they feel and suffer with the main character. This is what “flow” means — forgetting that you are reading in the foreign language — walking in another person’s shoes and being caught in the world of the book. In such a “flow” condition our brains absorb and acquire language unconsciously and very effectively. You will see how many new and idiomatic phrases and structures appear in the students’ speaking and writing after reading such a book.
Recently, the author has also published graphic novel editions of some of the books in this series. These can be an alternative for struggling readers. They can first read the graphic novel and then try to read the real book. At this point they have already understood the basics of the story and can read the real book with satisfying comprehension.
Here I am sharing the task booklet that worked really well in a year 3 class at Mittelschule. Click on the image below to download the file. It contains all the instructions for the students and some practical tips for the teacher on the last 2 pages.
As you can see, the tasks in my booklet are all communicative, holistic tasks that will work for any of the stories in this series. I do not ask the typical comprehension questions about a particular book. Often, these detailed questions demotivate the students and take the fun out of reading. Therefore, with a word of caution, I recommend that you visit the author’s website, where you will find a variety of additional teaching materials for these books. Some of these materials are wonderful and really interesting; others are traditional comprehension questions — and I personally would not want to use them with my students. The author’s website includes videos, audio readings of the books, links to very interesting background information about the events and, as I said before, some traditional comprehension questions.
