Discussion Questions: Pre-reading: 1. Why do you go to school? 2. Would you go to school if you didn't have to? 3. What does the word education mean to you? 4. What kind of qualities do you think a teacher should have? 5. What does it mean to be an outsider? 6. What does your family have to do if they need food or supplies? 7. What do you really wish you knew how to do? 8. Do you think a person needs to be brave to be curious? Explain. 9. Why do you think that this book is called "Fatty Legs"?
CHAPTER 1: - What does Olemaun think it must have been like at the outsiders' school? - After persisting what does Rosie say about the school? -What does it mean to take everything? -Why do you think that Olemaun's father told the outsiders “no” the previous four summers when they had come for her? ***At the end of Chapter 1 Olemaun's father uses a rock to demonstrate the change that will happen to her at the school. What comparison does he make and what is the significance? Does Olemaun "get" his message?
Chapter 2: 1. Have you ever gone on a long trip anywhere? Where did you go? How did you travel? How long did it take?
2. Olemaun’s parents wanted to wait until after the first of July to send her to school, what was important about this date and what took place on that day? What reasons does she give for that day being a festive time?
3. Why do you think that Olemaun's mother's words stung?
4. Why does Olemaun decide that she should go to the school?
5. How long does Olemaun say she stays at the school for and why?
6. What do you think that Olemaun meant when she said that the "Sisters, the Fathers and the Brothers...were not family; they were like owls and ravens raising wrens?
7. What do you think that the hooked nose outsider meant when she told Olemaun's father that, "you certainly can't teach her the things she needs to know." p. 28 24.
8. What kind of imagery is recurring by the end of Chapter two?
Chapter 3-
1. What did Olemaun think about the clothes that she was given? What were some of the items?
2. How do you think Olemaun felt about her name? How could you tell?
3. What did Olemaun's name mean and where did it come from? What is her new name?
4. Margaret was hoping to learn to read on her second day, was did she learn instead?
5. Do you think the Raven is picking on Margaret?
Chapter 4- 1. What did the Raven want Margaret to do at the beginning of the Chapter? Was it fair? Explain. 2. Why did the kids laugh when the Raven made Margaret clean the boards? 3. How did Margaret feel about the food they were feeding the kids at the school? 4.Why did the hatchlings start laughing at the Raven?
Chapter 5- 1. Margaret eventually turned the Raven's cruelty into a game. How did she "play"? 2. What news did Margaret receive when a boat delivered a letter from her father? Explain? 3. Why did classes have to be halted in October? 4. What happened to Margaret when she had to go to the bathroom when she was working in the hospital? 5. What did Margaret want to tell her father in her letter home? What happened to the letter instead? 6. What did Margaret think her silence would accomplish?
Chapter 6- 1. How did the Raven make Margaret pay for her silence at the station? 2. What was different about the stockings the Raven have to Margaret? Why do you think she did this? 3. What punishment does Margaret receive after Katherine called her "fatty legs" and Margaret called her "fatty face"? 4. What do you think Margaret plans to do to stop this "fatty legs business"? 5. How do you think Margaret felt when she told the Raven she couldn't put on her stockings? 6. What lesson does Margaret think that the Raven learned by the end of Chapter 6?