Featuring: Chaos Theory

Welcome to June! Some of you are already enjoying the coveted summer vacation while the rest of us are so close. I'm not in the classroom full time, but I hear from teachers across schools, districts, and states that this year was hard. As you open your arms to summer break, I wish you weeks and weeks of relaxation and fun. But before the year ends, even as student energy veers out of control, I always like to think about the students who are not excited for summer break. The ones who see school and your classroom as their safe space. What one little thing can you do for those students before you say good bye?

Today's title could be a beacon of hope for many high school students.

Title: Chaos Theory

Author: Nic Stone

Genre: Realistic fiction

Age range: 14+ (scenes of teenage drinking and references to teenage pregnancy)

Summary: A chance encounter brings high school seniors Shelbi and Andy into each other's orbits where they quickly realize how valuable of a friendship they have stumbled upon. As they share their vulnerabilities and their joys, they must navigate their open wounds of mental illness, alcoholism, and grief and learn how to not hurt themselves or each other any more.

Recommend Chaos Theory to students who also enjoyed...

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green (teenage girl dealing with how her mental illness impacts her relationships)
Baby & Solo by Lisabeth Posthuma (teenage boy learning how to grieve in non-destructive ways)
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (teenage boy and girl grow their relationship from friendship to romance while dealing with family pressure and drama)

How I'd teach it:

Once again, I find myself thinking about Book Clubs. Chaos Theory would be an excellent selection for a mental health themed Book Club unit. It seeks to educate about mental health while also validating the experiences of readers who battle mental illness. It's also on the shorter side (277 pages) and because it's interspersed with text thread conversations, it will be a more approachable and accessible book than other titles geared towards juniors and seniors.

Try this Create an App lesson (@whimsyandrigor) where "students analyze the conflict, design an app to ease the protagonist's problem, and back it up with evidence." Perhaps Andy gets an app to help him have constructive conversations with his mom, or Shelbi can get piloga (pilates + yoga) exercises on demand. See it here on TPT.

If you're a health teacher looking to create a classroom library, start here. It's an excellent addition to your mental health units in part because it educates the reader while giving them a delightful love story and plenty of family drama. But even more so, it’s because Stone shares in the author’s note that “I, Nic Stone, am *technically* mentally ill. I won’t get into my specific diagnoses here because they’re genuinely not important, but I want to warn you that a lot of what you’ll see in these pages is based on my literal personal experiences.” You could encourage students to read it independently or read sections of it with the whole class.

Learn more:

Much appreciation for Stone's honesty in her author's note: "while this book is written for individuals who live with or have experienced any of the varying forms of mental illness, it's written to the people who don't really *get* how mental illness 'works' and who receive a lot of their information about it from sources that honestly don't *get* it either."
Stone wrote this book in 2014 but it wasn't picked up. Now, after 3 years of pandemic isolation, she is celebrating "a beautiful upsurge in acceptance and information about mental health, mental health disorders, the ways that we’re impacted by environment and genetics, and how that all affects the way our brains process information."

Literacy Love Notes:

If you want your September-self to thank your current self, invite your students to recommend a book for next year's students. Come September, hang them in your classroom library for instant reading culture ambiance.

Whether your readers are big or small, these end-of-year reading ideas from Pernille Ripp are meaningful ways to reflect and celebrate. (I'm a fan of the "Reading Playlists" suggestion!)

Have a good one and learn everything you can,

Hannah

PS: Is this your favorite student?

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