Summer Novel Assignments 2016
Exiting Grade 5
Read: Students exiting Grade 5 will read Bud, Not Buddy by
Christopher Paul Curtis. Ten-year-old orphan, Bud, runs away from
his foster family. Along with his friend, Bugs, Bud journeys out west
to find his father.
Respond: Students will respond to a variety of comprehension
questions ranging among the literal, interpretive, and critical levels.
These questions will require the use of higher order skills and
citing of evidence from the text.
1. Why does Bud always introduce himself as "Bud, not Buddy?"
2. What is the Home and who stays there? Why does Bud not want to go back there?
3 . What things contribute to Bud's belief that Herman Calloway is his father?
4. Describe the ways in which strangers help Bud after he leaves the Amos house and
eventually, gets to Grand Rapids.
5. Describe Bud's mother using details from the novel.
6. How do Bud's feeling about Herman Calloway change in the course of the novel?
7. What does Bud mean when he says, "Here we go again" at the beginning of the novel
and again at the end of the novel?
8. How does Bud fulfill the meaning of his name in the course of the novel?
9. What does this novel express about the importance of family through its various characters
and situations?
10. What details are found in the story that describes the setting as the Great Depression Era?
Create: Students will choose one of the following interdisciplinary activities to complete.
1. Draw up an enticing new flier advertising an upcoming gig for the Calloway Band. Complete
with a new inventive name for the group.
2. Create a report including photographs on Negro League Baseball. Your report should answer
these questions: When did professional baseball become segregated, and why? When did
professional baseball become desegregated, and how? Why is Jackie Robinson recognized?
3. Write a mini biography/collage of one of the prominent African-Americans mentioned in the
novel: Paul Robeson, Dorothy Dandridge, Satchel Paige, or George Washington Carver.
Include visuals.
Submit: Students will submit responses to the questions and their completed project on
September 19, 2016 to their Language Arts Teacher.
Adapted From Perma-Bound Living Literature Series 2007