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Write about some of your qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, and/or expressions that characterize you.

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These 21 Books delve into the theme of identity and a space to belong. Some are grounded in reality while others are more fiction and whimsical. So there is definitely one for you.

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In middle school, it can be hard fitting in when everything and everyone around you is changing. Between discovering who you are and dealing with all the social pressures, things can feel overwhelming, but books can be a great comfort for anyone going through a difficult time. For readers 8+ that may be struggling, here are 21 books about identity and belonging to help them feel less alone.

After being raised by a flock of pigeons on an abandoned rooftop her whole life, a young girl must make a perilous trip to the ground for the first time to find help for Burr, the pigeon she loves most. With the help a retired postal worker, Burr's broken wing is mended, and Coo begins to evolve from her isolated life, experiencing warmth, safety, and human relationships for the first time. But just as Coo is beginning to blossom, she learns the human world is infinitely more complex-and cruel-than she could have imagined.

Samantha Goldstein and David Fisher have been friends ever since they met on their town's Little League baseball team. But when a new kid named Luke starts hanging out with them, what was a comfortable pair becomes an awkward trio. Luke's comments make Sammie feel uncomfortable-but all David sees is how easily Luke flirts with Sammie, and so David decides to finally make a move on the friend he's always had a crush on. Soon things go all wrong and too far, and Sammie and David are both left feeling hurt, confused, and unsure of themselves, without anyone to talk to about what happened.

It's a life-altering New Year for thirteen-year-old Lydia when she uproots to a Connecticut farm to live with her aunt following her mother's death. Aunt Brat and her jovial wife, Eileen, and their ancient live-in landlord, Elloroy, are welcoming-and a little quirky. When the women adopt a big yellow dog just days after her arrival, Lydia struggles to find a sense of belonging in her new family, while also keeping secrets of her own.

While her grandmother was alive, Emma's world was filled with enchantment. But now Gram is gone, and suddenly strange spots are appearing on Emma's skin. Soon, she's diagnosed with vitiligo-a condition that makes patches of her skin lose their color-and the magic in her world is suddenly replaced with school bullies and doctor appointments.

On his first day of summer rec, Ware meets Jolene, a tough, secretive girl planting a garden in the rubble of an abandoned church next to the camp. Soon he starts skipping Rec, creating a castle-like space of his own in the church lot. Jolene scoffs, calling him a dreamer-he doesn't live in the "real world" like she does. As different as Ware and Jolene are, though, they have one thing in common: for them, the lot is a refuge, and when it's threatened, they must find a way to save it.

All her life, Edie has known that her mom was adopted by a white couple. So, no matter how curious she might be about her Native American heritage, Edie is sure her family doesn't have any answers. Until the day when she and her friends discover a box hidden in the attic-a box full of letters signed "Love, Edith," and photos of a woman who looks just like her. Suddenly, Edie has a flurry of new questions about this woman who shares her name. But if her mom and dad have kept this secret from her all her life, how can she trust them to tell her the truth now?

The world tilted for Elodee this year, and now it's impossible for her to be the same as she was before. Not when her feelings have such a strong grip on her heart. Not when she and her twin sister, Naomi, seem to be drifting apart. So when Elodee's mom gets a new job in Eventown, moving seems like it might just fix everything. Everything seems "even" in Eventown, but as Elodee soon learns, there a price to pay for perfection-and pretending.

Cog looks like a normal twelve-year-old boy. But his name is short for "cognitive development," and he was built to learn. But after an accident leaves him damaged, Cog wakes up in an unknown lab-and Gina, the scientist who created and cared for him, is nowhere to be found. Surrounded by scientists who want to study him and remove his brain, Cog recruits four robot accomplices for a mission to find her.

Rahul Kapoor is heading into seventh grade in a small town in Indiana. The start of middle school is making him feel increasingly anxious, so his favorite person in the whole world, his grandfather, Bhai, gives him some well-meaning advice: Find one thing you're really good at and become the BEST at it. Those four little words sear themselves into Rahul's brain, but what if he discovers he isn't the best at anything?

Life used to be great for Rose: full of friends, a loving mom, and a growing fashion blog. But when her mother dies in a car crash, Rose is sent away to live with a strange grandmother she hardly knows and forced to attend a new school where mean girls ridicule her at every turn. The only place Rose finds refuge is in her grandmother's greenhouse. But one night she sees a strange light glowing from within it. When she goes to investigate, she finds herself transported back in time to the sixteenth century where she meets a young Queen Elizabeth and begins to uncover her own family secrets.

The last day of seventh grade has Jaime and Maya wondering who their real friends are. Jaime knows something is off with her friend group. They've started to exclude her and make fun of the way she dresses and the things she likes. At least she can count on her BFF, Maya, to have her back . . . right? Maya feels more and more annoyed with Jaime, who seems babyish compared to the other girls in their popular group. It's like she has nothing in common with Jai anymore. Are their days as BFFs numbered?
And don't forget to check out more adventures with Emmie & Friends!
Byx is the youngest member of her dairne pack. Believed to possess remarkable abilities, her mythical doglike species has been hunted to near extinction in the war-torn kingdom of Nedarra. After her pack is hunted down and killed, Byx fears she may be the last of her species. The Endling. So she sets out to find a safe haven, and to see if the legends of other hidden dairnes are true.
If you enjoy Endling: The Last, don't forget to check out the rest of the series!
They can be gifts. The right words can win you friends or make you enemies. They can come back to haunt you. Sometimes they can change things forever. When cell phones are banned at Branton Middle School, Frost and his friends come up with a new way to communicate: leaving sticky notes for each other all around the school. It catches on, and soon all the kids in school are leaving notes-though for every kind and friendly one, there is a cutting and cruel one as well.

Swift, a young wolf cub, lives with his pack in the mountains learning to hunt, competing with his brothers and sisters for hierarchy, and watching over a new litter of cubs. Then a rival pack attacks, and Swift and his family scatter. Alone and scared, Swift must flee and find a new home.

Annalise Meriwether-though kind, smart, and curious-is terribly lonely. Cursed at birth by the devious Fate Spinner, Annalise has always lived a solitary life with her loving parents. She does her best to ignore the cruel townsfolk of her desolate town-but the black mark on her hand won't be ignored. Not when the monster living within it, which seems to have an agenda of its own, grows more unpredictable each day. There's only one way for Annalise to be free: to enter the Labyrinth of Fate and Dreams and defeat the one who cursed her in the first place.

Jude never thought she'd be leaving her beloved older brother and father behind, all the way across the ocean in Syria. But when things in her hometown start becoming volatile, Jude and her mother are sent to live in Cincinnati with relatives. At first, everything in America seems too fast and too loud. But this life also brings unexpected surprises-there are new friends, a whole new family, and a school musical that Jude might just try out for. Maybe America, too, is a place where Jude can be seen as she really is.

Twelve-year-old Shayla is allergic to trouble. All she wants to do is to follow the rules. But in junior high, it's like all the rules have changed. Now she's suddenly questioning who her best friends are and some people at school are saying she's not black enough. Shay's sister, Hana, is involved in Black Lives Matter, but Shay doesn't think that's for her. After experiencing a powerful protest, though, Shay decides some rules are worth breaking. She starts wearing an armband to school in support of the Black Lives movement. Soon everyone is taking sides. And she is given an ultimatum.

When you're an identical twin, your story always starts with someone else. For Iris, that means her story starts with Lark. Iris has always been the grounded, capable, and rational one; Lark has been inventive, dreamy, and brilliant-and from their first moments in the world together, they've never left each other's side. When fifth grade arrives, however, it's decided that Iris and Lark should be split into different classrooms, and something breaks in them both. Iris is no longer so confident; Lark retreats into herself as she deals with challenges at school. And at the same time, something strange is happening in the city around them, things both great and small going missing without a trace.

The Unteachables are a notorious class of misfits, delinquents, and academic train wrecks. Their teacher is Mr. Zachary Kermit, the most burned-out teacher in all of Greenwich. He was once a rising star, but his career was shattered by a cheating scandal that still haunts him. The Unteachables never thought they'd find a teacher who had a worse attitude than they did. And Mr. Kermit never thought he would actually care about teaching again. Over the course of a school year, though, room 117 will experience mayhem, destruction-and maybe even a shot at redemption.

PIN ME!

Twelve-year-old Charlotte Lockard and eleven-year-old Ben Boxer are separated by more than a thousand miles. On the surface, their lives seem vastly different-Charlotte lives near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while Ben is in the small town of Lanester, Louisiana. During the course of one week, Charlotte and Ben-friends connected only by an online Scrabble game-will intersect in unexpected ways as they struggle to navigate the turmoil of middle school.

It's been almost a year since Rain's brother Guthrie died, and her parents still don't know it was all Rain's fault. In fact, no one does-Rain buried her secret deep, no matter how heavy it weighs on her heart. So when her mom suggests moving the family from Vermont to New York City, Rain agrees. But life in the big city is different. She's never seen so many people in one place-or felt more like an outsider.

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In middle school, it can be hard fitting in when everything and everyone around you is changing. Between discovering who you are and dealing with all the social pressures, things can feel overwhelming, but books can be a great comfort for anyone going through a difficult time.

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Here are three examples of songs about identity. If you want to bring any to the class that's appropriate then you are more than welcome.

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Lady Gaga - Born This Way (Official Music Video)

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How Autism Freed Me to be Myself by Rosie King

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How Autism Freed Me to be Myself by Rosie King

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NEW: With CommonLit Crosswalks, our literacy experts hand-pick CommonLit lessons that align to your curriculum to help meet your instructional goals. Learn more. Dismiss Announcement

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CommonLit | How Autism Freed Me to be Myself by Rosie King | CommonLit

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NEW: With CommonLit Crosswalks, our literacy experts hand-pick CommonLit lessons that align to your curriculum to help meet your instructional goals. Learn more. Dismiss Announcement Dismiss Announcement For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your web browser.

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Write a Decalogue about things you love. It can be people, sensations, actual objects, or anything.

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Going through the alphabet, correlate each letter with a word that comes to mind when you think about school. Bonus points when they correlate to English and the topic of this lesson.

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Standards that will be taught for this lesson

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Standards that will be taught for this lesson

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL 5.1: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative
discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5
topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly. (Also SL
3.1 and 4.1)

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.5.4.B: Read grade-level prose and poetry orally with
accuracy, appropriate rate and expression on successive readings. (Also RF.3.4.B
and 4.4.B)

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Comments & analysis: 789 / On a Columnar Self- / How ample to rely

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Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.

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Register now and publish your best poems or read and bookmark your favorite popular famous poems.

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Some FUN questions to ask others to get to know their identity.

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Some FUN questions to ask others to get to know their identity.

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1.What did you want to be when you were growing up?

2. What is one thing that happened to you and changed your life?

3. What is one thing you would like to change about yourself and why?

4. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? Why?

5. What would you say is the best thing that has happened to you yet?

6. What is the one thing you dream of doing?

7. Do you like animals? Which pet would you like to adopt?

8. Have you ever lost someone close to you?

9. What’s your passion in life?

10. What do you see yourself doing in 10 years?

11. What’s on your to do list for this year?

12. Who would you say is your role model? Why?

13. What’s your worst fear?

14. What is the one thing that you have done and are not proud of doing? Why?

15. Who are you most close to in your family?

16. Would you travel to the future or to the past?

17. What genre of music do you like to listen to?

18. What is your favorite song in the whole wide world? Why?

19. Would you say that you are proud of what you have achieved so far?

20. If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be? Why?

21. If you could have a super power, what would you choose? Why?

22. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live? Why?

23.If you were a millionaire for a day, what would you do?

24. What is your favorite, dearest memory?

25. How would your friends describe you? How would you LIKE them to describe you?

26. What do you honestly think of yourself?

27. What do you believe the concept of friendship is all about?

28. Have you ever broken someone’s heart before?

29. What’s your favorite picture of yourself? why?

30. What do you believe is too serious to be joked about?

31. Of all your family members, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

32.What book would you read over and over again and never get tired of?

33. What movie has most influenced you?

34.If you die today, what would you want to be most remembered for?

35. If you knew that it was your last moments on earth, what would you choose your last words to be?

36. If you could go back to a certain time in your life, what would it be?

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Twelve-year-old Shayla is allergic to trouble. All she wants to do is to follow the rules. But in junior high, it’s like all the rules have changed. Now she’s suddenly questioning who her best friends are and some people at school are saying she’s not black enough. Shay’s sister, Hana, is involved in Black Lives Matter, but Shay doesn't think that's for her. After experiencing a powerful protest, though, Shay decides some rules are worth breaking. She starts wearing an armband to school in support of the Black Lives movement. Soon everyone is taking sides. And she is given an ultimatum.

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3 Doors Down- Let Me Be Myself (lyrics) w/download

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This will be given at the end of the week and the students will do this towards another student.