The Secret Garden: Build Critical Reading Skills Through A Classic Favorite for ages 9-12 ~ 3-sessions with Lenita Graves

What is a secret and what makes it “fun”? Why do we love mysteries? Asking questions is one way to make ourselves “active” while reading. Strategies such as this, along with making personal connections, and organizing information in various ways enables us to read critically and form our own judgments and opinions—allowing us to understand the text better. In this 3-session workshop, expert Lenita Graves will teach students critical reading skills through discussion questions and activities centered around the key story elements of character, setting, plot, and theme as found in the children’s classic The Secret Garden. In addition to appreciating this classic, students will leave the workshop with strategies they may apply to other texts to improve their overall comprehension skills. *Pre-reading the book is NOT required to take this workshop. *Lenita Graves has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and has been teaching for over 32 years. She is also a published author, under the pen name Lenita Sheridan, of three children’s books in a series titled Guardian of the Gauntlet and has had poetry published in her hometown newspaper The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.