Summary Of Last Stop On Market Street

Matt de la Peña became the first Hispanic author to win a Newbery medal, for his book Last Stop on Market Street. The story is of a young, African-American boy riding the city bus with his Nana. This work was an inclusion to diverse literature, demonstrating an appreciation of life values and featured a diverse cast of characters riding the same bus.
Pena introduced us to an African-American boy named CJ and his grandmother Nana. The book follows them on their bus ride to their regularly after church Sunday routine. CJ wishes he didn’t have to work in the soup kitchen after church and is either envious of his friends who have cars or bus passengers who have gadgets. But every time he complains his nana points out all the good parts of their

day riding on the bus and states that riding the bus through the busy city is similar to riding through life. Nana explained what was important in life and appreciated the beauty surrounding them in the urban neighborhood as they rode on the bus. I enjoyed how Nana’s character explained about the beauty of life and taught her grandson to appreciate their surroundings. As Nana answered her grandson's questions, she gently imparted her wisdom onto him. Pena’s choice of language is simple and poetic, for example he wrote that Nana saw the rain as "giving the thirsty trees a drink. The bus breathes fire and the friendly bus driver can pull a coin out of CJ’s ear. The dirty city just makes the rainbow in the sky seem more beautiful.” By the time they hopped off the bus, CJ is glad to be going to the soup kitchen with Nana to help serve the friends who look forward to seeing them every week.
Nana helped shape the way CJ viewed the world and their place in the urban neighborhood. CJ is seen as inundated with children having cars, guitars, and gadgets. CJ developed this idea of 'I want, I want, I want' but nana’s character taught him to look at what he had rather than what he wanted.
Rationale:
Last Stop on the Market Street is an uplifting story that teaches readers of any age and race about their place in this world.

This book would be a good tool to teach third-grade level children. Pena uses a simple and poetic language to teach readers attitude and values despite the economic differences. Through this book, students will explore the importance of beauty, gratitude, and materialism. In the Last Stop on the Market Street, Nana and CJ had a Sunday routine. I can inquire third-grade students about the definition of routine and if they have a routine on a certain day. Nana teaches CJ many life lessons. I would ask the students if there is anyone who has taught them an important lesson. CJ volunteered with Nana at a soup kitchen each Sunday. Students can explain about the time they helped someone in need. Nana helped CJ see the beauty in riding the bus. With the use of challenging questions, I can ask the students if they rode the yellow school bus or have their parents drive them to school. I would then request them to describe in detail what they saw when they arrived to school and when they returned home. Using this book as a conservation starter, students can comprehend their own version of routine, life lesson, volunteer experiences, and beauty; and comparing it with the characters in the

book.
The possible use(s) of the book allows you to use concrete literacy teaching ideas with the book:
The Last Stop on the Market Street demonstrated a detailed description of CJ’s naïve qualities as he reflected on his Nana’s wisdom throughout the bus ride. This book is an intergenerational connection to literacy and urban studies. Through the Last Stop on the Market Street, I can incorporate the students’ daily lives and how they evaluate their roles in school, volunteering, and home.
It is important for the students to understand Pena’s selections of verbs in this story, including: pool, patter, zip, lurch, pluck, swirl, and slice.

To teach the Deaf student, I will use a visual method to sign the verbs because American Sign Language (ASL) does not include the verbs. The students can work together as a group to discover each other’s diverse backgrounds and how each of them learned to appreciate what they have rather than focusing on what they wanted. The groups of three can create a short, pantomime skit that demonstrates the definition of one of the mentioned verbs and share with their classmates. With my background in cinema production, I can use myself as a recorder of the students’ pantomime skits and post them on a class blog. Students can then remember the visual definitions and begin to use them in their sign language and written language. When the students understand the visual verbs, the students will enjoy reading more as they understand the concepts and apply the verbs in their conservation through sign

language.
I can ask students about the “special people” in their lives and have them write down who makes them feel special, what are their tough expectations of them, and what do they learn from these special adults. To give an example, I will include my grandfather as a “special adult” who taught me Spanish at young age. This was tough because I had to lip-read another language. However it is something that I am grateful for because now I can sign and speak both English and Spanish. To make it challenging for literacy readers, the students can turn their special moments with their special adults into a fictional picture book following the lines of Last Stop on Market Street. The fictional picture book is another visual tool to help diverse students to understand literacy in visual language.
Last Stop on Market Street provided a descriptive writing about the sounds and imagery. Pena quoted “on the bus, C.J closes his eyes, as suggested by the blind man sitting near him, to hear the guitar gently playing nearby. When he does this, he ‘sees what hears: sunset colors swirling over crashing waves;’ ‘a family hawks slicing through the sky,’ and ‘butterflies dancing free in the light of the moon.’” Because Deaf students cannot close their eyes, sign language is a great tool to incorporate literacy into visual language. Since there are no verbs in ASL, they will write down to memorize it. This called a visual memorization. Deaf students can write a short poem about the sounds they feel rather what they hear and compare it with the book.
As I read Last Stop on Market Street, I will allow several pause breaks to ask questions throughout the entire book and provide students to reflect what they had read. The pause breaks is one of good assessment tools to make sure my students understand vocabulary during the reading. Using inference and visual illustration, it will help the students form their own version of what is a beauty, world, and volunteering. I would provide a short writing exercise for the students to write and illustrate their own definition of the vocabulary. Visual arts are a great assessment tool to help educators knows if the Deaf students are on the right track. Last Stop on Market Street is little challenging for the Deaf students but provide visualization for the Deaf students to understand about their diversity roles in this world.