Research Guides: Intermediate Senior English: Welcome

IS Liaison Librarian

Mary Claire Vandenburg

Email Me

Contact:

Education Library, Duncan McArthur Hall
511 Union Street, Queen's University, Kingston, Ont. K7M 5R7

613-533-6000 x74094

Subjects:Education

English Resources in the 7-12 Classroom

Image courtesy of Pixabay

This guide is created for Teacher Candidates preparing to work at the grade 7-12 level in Ontario schools. Resources include e-books, lesson plans, and video streaming for use in the classroom.

The Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC) is a national, not-for-profit organization founded in 1976. We are dedicated to encouraging, promoting and supporting the reading, writing, illustrating and publishing of Canadian books for young readers. Our programs, publications, and resources help teachers, librarians, booksellers and parents select the very best for young readers. CCBC website.

Novelist

Novelist - , a database available online at your public library, provides subject heading access, reviews, annotations, and much more for over 200,000 fiction and readable non-fiction titles. The database also includes other content of interest to readers, such as Author Read-alikes, Book Discussion Guides, BookTalks, book lists on high-interest topics, Award Lists, and Feature Articles.

For school media specialists and teachers there are Standards-Based Thematic Units and Picture Book Extenders, as well as specific teaching guides for using fiction in the classroom.

Intermediate Senior Drama

Spotlight item

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
Call Number: PS8607.I53 M37 2017 juv
ISBN: 9781770864863
Publication Date: 2017

In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America's Indigenous people, and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow, and dreams, means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a fifteen-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones and take refuge from the "recruiters" who seek them out to bring them to the marrow-stealing "factories."
The Pain Eater by Beth Goobie
Call Number: PS8563.O59 P35 2017 juv
ISBN: 9781772600209
Publication Date: 2017-03-07

She hadn't told anyone. Not a single soul. Not one word about that night and what had been done to her had ever passed Maddy Malone's lips. She'd thought about it at first - had been desperate, even frantic, to tell. But then had come the shame, and the intimidation from the boys who raped her - and the one who held her down. Now it's the beginning of a new school year and Maddy is hoping that she can continue to hide, making herself as quiet and small as possible. She is consumed with keeping the memories at bay, forcing them down through small cuts and the burn from the end of a cigarette. But when her English class is given the assignment of writing a collaborative novel about a fifteen-year-old girl, The Pain Eater, fact and fiction begin to meet up. When the boys spread rumors about Maddy, she realizes that continuing to hide the truth will only give them more control, and she slowly gains the courage to confront them.
The fashion committee : a novel of art, crime, and applied design by Susan Juby.
Call Number: PS8569.U38 F37 2017 juv
ISBN: 9780670067602
Publication Date: 2017

Charlie Dean and John Thomas-Smith are really different, but they share one thing in common: both are gunning for a scholarship to the private art high school that could make all their dreams come true. And whoever wins the fashion competition will win the scholarship.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
ISBN: 9780061120084
Publication Date: 2006-05-23

It must be September: Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South--and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred. Voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century and a teacher favorite, this gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father--a crusading local lawyer--risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
The Break by Katherena Vermette
ISBN: 9781487001117
Publication Date: 2018-03-06

Multiple Award Winner and Queen's Reads title, The Break, is the story of when Stella, a young Metis mother, who looks out her window one evening and spots someone in trouble on the Break -- a barren field on an isolated strip of land outside her house -- she calls the police to alert them to a crime. In a series of shifting narratives, people who are connected, both directly and indirectly, with the victim -- police, family, and friends -- tell their personal stories leading up to that fateful night.
Shooter by Caroline Pignat
ISBN: 9780143187578
Publication Date: 2016-05-03

The Breakfast Club meets We Need to Talk About Kevin A lockdown catches five grade 12 students by surprise and throws them together in the only unlocked room on the empty third floor. There's Alice: an introverted writer, trapped in the role of big sister to her older autistic brother, Noah. Isabelle: the popular, high-achieving, student council president, whose greatest performance is her everyday life. Hogan: an ex-football player with a troubled past and a hopeless future. Xander: that socially awkward guy hiding behind the camera, whose candid pictures of school life, especially those of Isabelle, have brought him more trouble than answers. Told in five unique voices through prose, poetry, text messages, journals, and homework assignments, each student reveals pieces of their true story as they wait for the drill to end. But, Isabelle gets a text: NOT A DRILL!! Shooter in the school!
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Call Number: PS3620.H6243 H38 2017 juv
ISBN: 9780062498533
Publication Date: 2017

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the suburban prep school she attends. The balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood friend Khalil at the hands of a white police officer. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
Calvin by Martine Leavitt.
Call Number: PS8573.E128 C34 2016 juv
ISBN: 9781554987207
Publication Date: 2016

Seventeen-year-old Calvin, who was born on the day that the last Calvin and Hobbes comic strip was published, is stricken by a schizophrenic episode and begins having conversations with the tiger, Hobbes. Struggling to regain control of his mind and destiny, Calvin becomes convinced that he'll get better if the strip's creator, Bill Watterson, will draw just one more comic.
We All Fall Down by Eric Walters
Call Number: PS8595.A688 W4 2006 juv
ISBN: 9780385661928
Publication Date: 2006

Today is September 10, 2001, and Will, as part of a school assignment, will be going to his dad's workplace tomorrow, but Will would rather sleep in and do nothing with his friends. His father doesn’t even have a cool job like his best friend James’s father who is a fireman. Will’s dad works for a trading company on the eighty-fifth floor in the south building of the World Trade Center in Manhattan.
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
Call Number: PS3558 .I549 O8 1967t juv
ISBN: 0670532576
Publication Date: 1967

"Remember to Stay gold, Ponyboy...Stay gold..." When it was first published in 1967, The Outsiders was a unique American coming of age story portraying innocent Ponyboy Curtis and his struggle to find a place for himself in an unkind world. Fifty years later, can it speak to teenagers as powerfully as ever despite the very different language used by the characters themselves?
Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E. K. Johnston
Call Number: PS8619.O4565 E85 2016 juv
ISBN: 9781101994580
Publication Date: 2016

Veronica Mars meets William Shakespeare in E.K. Johnston's latest brave and unforgettable heroine. Hermione Winters is captain of her cheerleading team, and in tiny Palermo Heights, this doesn't mean what you think it means. At PHHS, the cheerleaders don't cheer for the sports teams; they are the sports team--the pride and joy of a tiny town. The team's summer training camp is Hermione's last and marks the beginning of the end of...she's not sure what. She does know this season could make her a legend. But during a camp party, someone slips something in her drink. And it all goes black. In every class, there's a star cheerleader and a pariah pregnant girl. They're never supposed to be the same person. White Pine award nominee 2017.
Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt
Call Number: PS3569.C51548 O73 2015 juv
ISBN: 9780544462229
Publication Date: 2015-10-06

The two-time Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt delivers the shattering story of Joseph, a father at thirteen, who has never seen his daughter, Jupiter. After spending time in a juvenile facility, he's placed with a foster family on a farm in rural Maine. Here Joseph, damaged and withdrawn, meets twelve-year-old Jack, who narrates the account of the troubled, passionate teen who wants to find his baby at any cost. In this riveting novel, two boys discover the true meaning of family and the sacrifices it requires.
Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Call Number: PS3608.U5825 F57 2015 juv
ISBN: 9780399162596
Publication Date: 2015

"The author of the beloved One for the Murphys gives readers an emotionally-charged, uplifting novel that will speak to anyone who's ever thought there was something wrong with them because they didn't fit in. Everybody is smart in different ways. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its life believing it is stupid. Ally has been smart enough to fool a lot of smart people. Every time she lands in a new school, she is able to hide her inability to read by creating clever yet disruptive distractions. She is afraid to ask for help; after all, how can you cure dumb? However, her newest teacher Mr. Daniels sees the bright, creative kid underneath the trouble maker. With his help, Ally learns not to be so hard on herself and that dyslexia is nothing to be ashamed of. As her confidence grows, Ally feels free to be herself and the world starts opening up with possibilities. She discovers that there's a lot more to her: and to everyone: than a label, and that great minds don't always think alike."
The Unquiet Past by Kelley Armstrong
Call Number: PS8551.R5535 U67 2015 juv
ISBN: 9781459806542
Publication Date: 2015

Tess has always been tormented by waking visions that make her question her sanity. When the orphanage she lives in burns down, she decides to face her fears and find out once and for all what is wrong with her. She believes the truth must lie with her parents, and so, armed with only an address and phone number, Tess travels to a crumbling mansion in rural Quebec, where she discovers evidence of mistreatment of mental patients. She also makes an unlikely ally and gradually unearths her family’s sad history—and finally accepts the truth about her paranormal powers. Part of the SECRETS—a series of seven linked novels that can be read in any order. Red Maple award nominee 2017.
We Are All Made of Molecules by Susin Nielsen
Call Number: 9781770497795
ISBN: 9781770497795
Publication Date: 2015

Thirteen-year-old brilliant but socially-challenged Stewart and mean-girl Ashley must find common ground when, two years after Stewart's mother died, his father moves in with his new girlfriend--Ashley's mother, whose gay ex-husband lives in their guest house.

Novelist Plus

Most of the summaries above come from Novelist Plus - a database available online at your public library.