In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson Unit
Interest Level:
3-5
Grade Level Equivalent:
3.8
Age:
8-12
Genre:
Historical Fiction
Subject:
Immigration, Prejudice and Tolerance, Chinese and Chinese American
In 1947, the Year of the Boar, Sixth Cousin, also known as Bandit, leaves China with her parents
for a new beginning in America. Proud of the American name that she chose herself, Shirley
Temple Wong is optimistic that her new home will be the land of many opportunities. But it's
harder than she expected. Though her classmates in Brooklyn come from a variety of
backgrounds, Shirley is the only one who doesn't speak English, and she worries that she will
never have a friend. Then she gets in a fight with Mabel, the tallest, scariest girl in the fifth
grade. Though Shirley winds up with two black eyes, she is faithful to the code of childhood and
doesn't tell anyone what happened.
Her silence gains her the respect and friendship of Mabel, who gives her the gift that truly
changes her life: baseball. Soon Shirley is the biggest Brooklyn Dodgers fan of all, listening to
the radio to hear the triumphs and heartbreaks of the team and her hero, Jackie Robinson.
Meanwhile, she takes piano lessons from her landlord, Señora Rodriguez, and saves money by
baby-sitting Mrs. O'Reilly's triplets. She begins to feel at home, and yet deep within herself
Shirley discovers that she wants to hold on to her memories of China, and the knowledge that
she is Chinese inside, as well as American. She can be both — a "double happiness."
iPad Activities:
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Listen to the audio book of In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson ($9.95).
Download Chinese New Year music.
Purchase a Chinese zodiac app.
TCEA
www.tcea.org
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Use Dictionary.com app to look up vocabulary words (clan, patriarch, matriarch,
squandered, Buddha, foreign, temple, stickball).
Use Google Earth app to look up locations from the story.
Use Safari to search for images of China and Brooklyn and save these as photos.
Download a video podcast on the Great Wall of China.
Download the free abacus app and have students work in teams to determine how to
use the abacus.
Use the Wikipedia app to do research on Shirley Temple and Jackie Robinson.
Watch the movie about Jackie Robinson in the Jackie Robinson Story app ($.99).
Use the Doodle Buddy app to draw a rickshaw.
Watch the WNET videos on Asia.
Learn to count to 10 in Chinese using the Free Chinese Essentials app.
Tangrams are an ancient Chinese game. Play the free TanZen Lite app.
Create a Venn diagram using iDesk Lite showing the differences and similarities between
China and Brooklyn.
Download the free Fridge Poet app and have students write poems about how Shirley
Temple Wong felt as she came to America.
Use the Toontastic app ($3.99) to create a cartoon about the book.
Imagine that you are Shirley Temple Wong and write a letter, using the Pages app
($9.99), to Fourth Cousin in China. Tell her about the experiences that Shirley is having
in America and how she feels about her new home.
Watch the YouTube video “In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson”
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS5TZkS05Wc). Then create a compare/contrast
chart in Numbers ($9.99) comparing Jackie Robinson’s life and Shirley Temple Wong’s.
Information about Robinson is available at this website:
http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/robinson_j.htm.
If baseball was “America’s favorite pastime” during Shirley’s life, what is it now? Record
a short paragraph explaining your answer using the free app Voice Memos for iPad.
Additional lesson ideas are available here:
http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/ts/viewTrackMembersText.do;jsessionid=C28FEAF039
519804B1CDE412E6935CDA?number=63256&password=
TCEA
www.tcea.org