Freak The Mighty Webquest

I have not read this book yet, but my 8th grade students all said they read it in 6th grade and loved it. It is a story about the friendship of two boys, one with a physical disability and one with a learning disability. This Webquest directs the students to do further research into disabilities and how they affect people in society. I think the activity could help students empathize more with people with disabilities, and I consider empathy to be an important concept for students to begin to grasp in middle school. For the activity, students work in groups of about five. Each student researches a different disability, and the group later combines its research and designs a public service announcement (PSA) around the information they have compiled. Although each student does have to submit a written report, the activity differentiates somewhat in terms of product by also incorporating a performance aspect in the PSA. Also, prior to conducting their research, students read the book in literature circles in which they are each assigned different roles. Assigning the multiple roles ensures process differentiation along the way.